2022 Virtuosic Summer Weekend
In lieu of the 2022 Virtual Competition, the distinguished jury panel and organizers of the San Jose International Piano Competition have elected to transform our virtual event into one of performance and education rather than competition.
The 2023 Competition will be a LIVE event open to ages 18-32
2022 International Jury
Antonio Pompa-Baldi
President of the Jury
USA / Italy
Antonio Pompa-Baldi
Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 1999 and embarked on a career that continues to extend across five continents.
A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris, France, Antonio Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi appears at the world’s major concert venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Milan’s Sala Verdi, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Shanghai’s Grand Theatre, and Paris’ Salle Pleyel, to name a few.
He has collaborated with leading conductors including Hans Graf, James Conlon, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Theodore Kuchar, Benjamin Zander, Louis Lane, and Keith Lockhart. He has performed with ensembles and colleagues such as Takacs String Quartet, Alison Balsom, Sharon Robinson, and principals of the Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, and New York Philharmonic, among others.
With a concerto repertoire including more than 60 works, Mr. Pompa-Baldi recently performed cycles of all the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos, the five Beethoven Piano Concertos, and both Brahms Concertos with various orchestras. He has played recitals in most major venues over the world.
In 2019, he was a returning guest at the third edition of the Lang Lang International Piano Festival in Shenzhen, China, continued his honorary guest professorship at the Beijing China Conservatory, and was named honorary professor at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music. Among the stops on his tours, he performed in Vienna (Austria), Malaga (Spain), Nancy (France), New York, and throughout China (Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Dalian, and Guangzhou).
Mr. Pompa-Baldi has recorded over 30 CDs to date, for various labels including Harmonia Mundi, Steinway, TwoPianists, Azica, Brilliants, and Centaur Records. Among them, the complete piano and chamber music works of Grieg, the Josef Rheinberger Piano Sonatas, the complete Hummel Piano Sonatas, and CDs dedicated to Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Respighi, Roberto Piana, and Rachmaninoff.
For the Steinway label, Pompa-Baldi recorded a disc of songs by Francis Poulenc and Edith Piaf, arranged for solo piano, to commemorate the 50th year of the passing of both French musical icons, as well as a CD titled “Napoli”, which features new piano versions of famous Neapolitan songs. His latest releases feature Concertos for Violin, Piano and Orchestra by Mendelssohn (Brilliant Classics), Haydn, and Hummel (Centaur Records).
Antonio Pompa-Baldi is a Steinway Artist. He is often invited to judge international piano competitions such as the Cleveland, Hilton Head, E-Competition, BNDES Rio de Janeiro, and Edward Grieg, among many others. He serves as president of the jury and artistic advisor for the San Jose International Piano Competition since 2006.
Pompa-Baldi is on the Piano Faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music. His students have been prizewinners in important competitions such as Marguerite Long, Hilton Head, Isang Yun, and Gina Bachauer. He is regularly invited to teach masterclasses in countless Universities, Music Schools, and Festivals in the US and all over the world.
In 2015, Pompa-Baldi founded the Todi International Music Masters festival, of which he is Artistic Director and Faculty Member. This summer festival takes place every August in the beautiful Italian town of Todi. It features 15 concerts in 15 days, with internationally renown faculty members, and students from all over the world.
Nina Schumann
2022 Jury Member
South Africa
Nina Schumann
Nina Schumann was born into a musical family in Stellenbosch South Africa. Her first appearance with an orchestra was at the age of 15 and her talent soon captured the attention of the public. She now has over 150 concerto performances with orchestras in South Africa, Germany, Portugal, Scotland, Armenia, Poland, Sweden and the United States to her credit, and some 40 concertos in her repertoire.
In 1999 she was appointed as Professor and Head of Piano at the University of Stellenbosch where she initiated the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival and the Stellenbosch International Piano Symposium. Schumann has also formed a critically acclaimed duo with her partner, pianist Luis Magalhães, simply titled TwoPianists. Their CD’s have received rave reviews from international publications such as Diapason, International Record Review, Gramaphone and Allmusic.com. American Record Guide named their second CD it’s Editor’s Choice.
Schumann is a co-founder and director of TwoPianists Records, which is distributed worldwide by Naxos. For two consecutive years, TwoPianists Records won the South African Music Award for the Best Popular Classical Album. Schumann’s first recording with mezzo-soprano Michelle Breedt, Shakespeare Inspired, also received the German Critics’ Choice Award.
Schumann’s collaborative work has led to engagements in Wigmore Hall and Zürich Tonhalle and she partnered with such luminaries as Ivry Gitlis, Bryn Terfel, Michelle Breedt and Daniel Rowland. She is also a sought after pedagogue and has given master classes worldwide at prestigious international institutions. Schumann is a YAMAHA International Artist.
Namik Sultanov
2022 Jury Member
Azerbaijan
Namik Sultanov
Namik Sultanov has been known as a distinguished pianist and outstanding pedagogue with his exceptional lyrical gifts and distinctive performance style. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan (former USSR), he showed an extraordinary talent for music at a very early age. He played several instruments such as the violin and flute and studied composition. At the age of twelve, after being deeply impressed by the performance of Van Cliburn, winner of the First Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, he started to study Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto by himself. In a short period of time, he prepared and played all three movements with the Azerbaijan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. After this big success he became the student of Prof. Lev Naumov at the Moscow State Conservatory. After graduation he was appointed an associate professor with the added title “Honored Artist of the Azerbaijan Republic.” His intense musicality, brilliant virtuosity and electrifying personality consistently thrill audiences at the prestigious concert halls of Moscow, Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, Mexico City, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Minsk, Alma – Ata, Tallinn, San Francisco, and Baku.
In 1991 Dr. Sultanov was invited to join the piano department at Bilkent University in Turkey, where he was the Chairman of the Piano Department, and Dean of the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts. Dr. Sultanov nurtured many students who have become winners in different piano competitions and has been invited as a jury member to numerous national and international piano competitions. Dr. Sultanov currently serves on the faculty at San Jose State University School of Music and Dance in San Jose, California
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