Martina Filjak
Pianist Martina Filjak regularly delights the international public and critics with her simultaneously passionate and lyrical playing and technical perfection as an ‘artist of galvanizing power’ with a ‘magnetic stage presence’.
She attracted the attention of the wider international public in 2009, when she won the Gold Medal and a number of special awards at the renowned international competition in Cleveland, and soon after made her debut in the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Musikverein in Vienna as well as the Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall(“Vivid and attractive stage presence … resourcefulness of technique and naturalness of musicality … Pianist worthy of attention’, The New York Times).). Just before Cleveland, she won first prizes at the Viotti (2007) and Maria Canals competitions in Barcelona (2008) and was the laureate of the Busoni competition in Bolzano.
Martina Filjak, piano
Born into a musical family, she started learning the piano at the age of five, and already at the age of six she performed in public for the first time. She received her musical education at the Academy of Music in Zagreb and the Vienna Conservatory, and then completed it in a renowned class for soloists in Hanover. She also attended master classes at the prestigious Piano Academy on Lake Como in Italy.
She is the winner of numerous awards and recognitions, including the ‘Vladimir Nazor’ award for performances of Brahms’s 1st Concerto and Kelemen’s Concerto, the ‘Milka Trnina’ award of the Croatian Society of Music Artists, ‘Orlando’ for her performance at the Dubrovnik Summer Games, “Judita” for her performance concert of Dora Pejačević in the Split summer, and in 2009 she was awarded the Order of the Croatian Pleter for achievements in music.
In the last few seasons, Martina has performed with leading world orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, Sand Diego Symphony, The Florida Orchestra, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Bilbao Symphony, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Staatskapelle Weimar, Staatskapelle Halle, Bremen Philharmonic, Lübeck Philharmonic, Robert – Schumann Philharmonie Chemnitz, Slovenian Philharmonic, Japan Century Symphony Orchestra, Israel Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra Simfonica La Verdi from Milan. Also, she performed on the famous stages of halls such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Berlin, l’Auditori and Palau de la Música Catalana/ Barcelona, Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall/ New York, Boston/ Jordan Hall, Teatro San Carlo, Sala Verdi, Salle Gaveau, Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Wien, NDR hall/ Hannover, Residenz in Munich, Auditorio Nacional – Madrid, and Ravinia Festival in Chicago.
In recent years, Martina has often collaborated with distinguished conductors such as JoAnn Falletta, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Alexander Shelley, Hans Graf, Markus Poschner, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Josep Caballe-Domenech, Tito Munoz, Carlos Miguel Prieto and Stefan Sanderling. She cultivates her love for chamber music with regular performances and collaborations with artists such as the Szymanowski Quartet, Ensemble Berlin, Dmitry Sinkovsky, Radovan Vlatkovic, Marija Pavlovic, Tatjana Vassiljeva, Felix Klieser and Monika Leskovar.
Concert season 2018 /19 she started with a performance of Brahms’s 2nd piano concerto with the Staatskapelle Halle orchestra at the music festival in Chorin, and continued it with performances at the Samoborsk musical autumn, and a series of performances with orchestras and conductors: Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogota and Diego Naser, the New West Symphony and Fawzi Haimor, the Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock and Nicholas Milton, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic and Josep Caballe Domenech, the Malaga Philharmonic and Guillermo Garcia Calvo, the Capella Quileia and Paul Goodwin, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Teatro Colon and Manuel Hernandez Silva as well as the ensemble of Zagreb soloists.
Martina’s wide repertoire includes literature from Bach to Beria and over thirty piano concertos.
Martina speaks 7 languages fluently. Fortunately for her, as an active performer, she likes to travel.
Martina Filjak: “I love nature. I am truly happy in nature. I am delighted by music that evokes the sounds of nature and folk melodies – for example Bartók’s Suite Outdoors, Six Encores by Beria (Wasserklavier, Erdenklavier, Feuerklavier and Luftklavier) and Ravel’s Une barque sur l’océan – are certainly among my favorite works. At the same time, I am attracted to chamber music, but also to technically and intellectually demanding and complicated works such as Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Bartók’s Piano Concerto no. 2. 2.