For over 40 years, concert pianist Janina Fialkowska has enchanted audiences and critics around the world. She has been praised for her musical integrity, her refreshing natural approach and her unique piano sound thus becoming “one of the Grandes Dames of piano playing” (Frankfurter Allgemeine). Born in Canada, she began her piano studies with her mother at age 4 continuing on in her native Montreal with Yvonne Hubert. In Paris she studied with Yvonne Lefébure and in New York at the Juilliard School with Sascha Gorodnitzki, experiencing the best of both French and Russian piano traditions. Her career was launched in 1974, when the legendary Arthur Rubinstein became her mentor after her prize-winning performance at his inaugural Master Piano Competition, calling her a “born Chopin interpreter” laying the foundation for her lifelong identification with this composer. Since then she has performed with the foremost orchestras worldwide under the baton of such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Bernard Haitink, Lorin Maazel, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Roger Norrington and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, to name one of the younger generation. She has won special recognition for a series of important premieres, notably Liszt’s newly discovered Third Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony and several contemporary piano concertos. Ms Fialkowska's discography includes many award-winning discs, e.g. the BBC Music Magazine’s 2013 “Instrumental CD of the Year" award as well as the Canadian "Juno Award" in 2018. Her native Canada has bestowed upon her their highest honors: “Officer of the Order of Canada”, the “Governor General’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award in Classical Music” (Canada's equivalent to the US Kennedy Centre Awards), as well as three honorary doctorates. She passes on her wide musical experience in master classes and at her annual “International Piano Academy” in Bavaria, where she now resides and makes frequent appearances as a juror of the world's most prestigious piano competitions. The 2018/19 season sees Janina Fialkowska concertizing in England and Poland (two London recitals and a celebration of the Republic of Poland’s 100th anniversary with the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing the Paderewski piano concerto in London’s Barbican as well as in the award-winning Philharmonic Hall of Szczecin, Poland). She will also perform several recitals and orchestral concerts in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Spain. In spring of 2019 she will return to her native Canada for a tour in the provinces of Manitoba and Onatrio as well as later that year for a tour of summer festivals. A new recording of French piano music will appear in October on the ATMA Classique label. In September she will continue with the 6th edition of her own “International Piano Academy” in Bavaria and will be once again acting as a juror of the world’s most prestigious piano competitions.