Adam Golka
With his “brilliant technique and real emotional depth” (The Washington Post), pianist Adam Golka has won critical acclaim for his supreme technique and astute sense of drama and pacing. He has garnered international prizes including the 2008 Gilmore Young Artist Award, first prize in the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition in 2003 and the 2009 Max I. Allen Classical Fellowship Award of the American Pianists Association.
In 2011/2012, Adam Golka opens the season performing all five Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Lubbock Symphony. He also plays concertos by Mozart, Liszt and Ravel with the Phoenix, Duluth Superior, Eugene, Fairfax, and Santa Fe symphony orchestras. Recitals and concerts include dates at the Garth Newel Center and in Washington, D.C., Houston, Indianapolis, Texas, California and the Dakotas. He joins a Ravinia Steans Institute tour, with dates in Boston, Chicago, New York City, Stamford, and at the Highland Park Music Festival.
In March 2010, Golka made his Isaac Stern Auditorium debut at Carnegie Hall, playing Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto with the New York Youth Symphony. Solo and chamber music appearances have taken him to Concertgebouw’s KleineZaal, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Nakanoshima Hall in Osaka, the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, and prestigious festivals such as the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the New York City International Keyboard Festival at Mannes, the Newport Music Festival, and the Duszniki Chopin festival. In recent seasons, he has played the concertos of Beethoven, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel with the Warsaw and Erie Philharmonics and the Indianapolis, West Virginia, Wichita, Ann Arbor, Silicon Valley, and Pensacola Symphonies.
Golka’s concerto appearances have included engagements with the Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Phoenix, San Diego, Fort Worth, Syracuse, and Grand Rapids symphonies. Internationally, he has appeared with the BBC Scottish Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Shanghai Philharmonic, Orchestre Poitou-Charentes, and the Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco.
In his young career, Golka has performed more than twenty piano concertos, as well as solo works that include the 32 sonatas of Beethoven. He is also a dedicated chamber music and lieder collaborator. In recital, he frequently performs Richard Danielpour's "Piano Fantasy" (2008), a work commissioned for Golka by the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival.
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Golka comes from an immigrant family of Polish musicians. After studying with his mother, pianist Anna Golka, he moved to Fort Worth to pursue studies with Jose Feghali at Texas Christian University, and later with Dariusz Pawlas at Rice University. Adam lives in New York City and frequently travels to Baltimore, where he studies with the legendary Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute.
