Jury

Riccardo Risaliti was born in Prato and studied at the Cherubini Conservatory in  Florence, as a pupil of Rio Nardi and Luigi Dallapiccola. Among his teachers were also Nikita Magaloff, Carlo Zecchi and Sergio Lorenzi.
After initially working as assistant for piano coaching and chamber music at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena  and  at the Teatro Municipale in Florence, and as a music critic (for La Nazione in Florence), he won several piano competitions (Vercelli, Seregno, etc..) and began the career of concert pianist, making his debut with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
He has played for various associations and festivals, among which feature: Teatro alla Scala, Accademia di S. Cecilia in Rome, Festival di Brescia e Bergamo, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, RAI in Rome and Turin.  As a performer of chamber music, he has often played with illustrious instrumentalists, singers and ensembles. As a soloist, he has often preferred particular repertoires (for the Ricordi label he recorded seldom played Liszt transcriptions). Recently he has experimented with contemporary music, performing some works for the first time.
He has been a teacher at the Conservatory in Pesaro, at the Milan Conservatory for 30 years since 1973, and has been professor and pedagogic advisor at the Incontri col Maestro International Piano Academy of Imola since its creation in 1989. He regularly holds master classes and summer courses at the Mozarteum of Salzburg and at the Festival delle Nazioni of Città di Castello. A scholar of piano literature and interpretation, he holds conferences and seminars. He also works as a journalist and editor of musical texts, and is often invited by international piano competitions as jury member.

Oxana Yablonskaya is an American-Israeli pianist who has    an active international performing career since the early 1960s. Born in Moscow,Yablonskaya was a pupil of    Anaida Sumbatyan at the    Moscow Central School for the Gifted where she studied from the ages of six through sixteen. She then pursued further studies at the Moscow Conservatory with legendary    Alexander Goldenweiser and became a first student of    Dmitry Bashkirov, whom Goldenweiser just invited to teach as his Assistant. She was a student of Tatiana Nikolayeva in her Doctorate program. After graduating from the conservatory in 1965, she joined the school's piano faculty. She went on to win top prizes in the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in 1963, Rio de Janeiro Piano Competition in 1965 and the Vienna Beethoven Competition in 1969.
Yablonskaya was invited to perform as soloist and    with orchestras    in concert halls in the West during the 1960s and 1970s, but was never allowed to accept invitations. She performed throughout the USSR and made numerous recordings on the Melodya label. She was named a "Soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic" and was    highly active as a soloist with the Bolshoi Orchestra.
 
Frustrated by the    limitations of her artistic freedom ,she emigrated to the United States in 1977, but only after two years of waiting as “ Refusnik” ,stripped of her job at the Moscow Conservatory and concert career. 75 prominent musicians, actors, composers, senators,including Leonard Bernstein, Kathryn    Hepburn, Shelly Winters, Henry Miller, Isaak Bashevis-Singer ( Nobel Prize Winner) and even President Carter appealed to the Soviet government to let her leave .

 Described by The New York Times as an "internationally known virtuoso" and "one of the country's most distinguished musical residents", Yablonskaya has toured in concerts and recitals throughout the world and has made numerous recordings. She taught as a member of the piano faculty at the Juilliard School for more than 25 years, until 2009.

 Yablonskaya is the Winner of Grand Prix du Disque from the Liszt Society in Budapest for her recording of music by Schubert-Liszt and Liszt. Oxana Yablonskaya is an Honorary Academician of the International Academy of the Arts at the United Nations, International Academy of the Arts in San Francisco and Independent Academy of Liberal Arts at the Russian Academy of Sciences. She is recipient of the Einstein Medal for Outstanding Achievements in the Arts.
Besides active concert and teaching career , Ma. Yablonskaya made editions for International Music Co. in New York.

In 2016 Prof. Yablonskaya came to Israel, where she now lives and teaches at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and continues to dazzle audiences throughout Israel and abroad. 

Oliver Kern, born in 1970, graduated with a first-class degree in piano, orchestral and choral conducting from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, under the guidance of Wan Ing Ong. He then went on to specialize in piano with Rudolf Buchbinder and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, at the Musik-Akademie in Basel and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.  
Throughout his career, he has won a considerable number of awards in international piano competitions. He has attracted attention and positive reviews from critics by winning two prestigious competitions: the “ARD” competition in Munich, in 1999, and the “Beethoven” competition in Vienna, in 2001, having been the first German pianist to have won this award. He is much appreciated for his performance of Beethoven’s and Brahms’ music – critics have recognized his noteworthy possession of technical virtuosity that is not an end in itself, but rather oriented toward a thorough research into timbre and expression. His profound interpretation has led him to the realization of seldom undertaken cultural projects such as the performance of Brahms’ complete works for piano solo on different continents: “With great intensity and poetry Oliver Kern is modeling the Brahms cycle.” (Braunschweiger Zeitung).  
Right now he is finishing the performance of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in Sicily before playing it again in Germany in spring 2025.  

He has performed in important festivals and in famous halls throughout America, Asia, and Europe, and has been acclaimed by audiences at esteemed concert venues such as: Musikverein and Konzerthaus Wien, Schauspielhaus Berlin, Musikhalle Hamburg, Herkulessaal Munich, Salle Gaveau Paris, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Auditorium St. Cecilia Rome, Century Hall Beijing, Saitama Arts Centre Tokyo, Seoul Arts Center. He has played with famous orchestras including the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seoul Symphony Orchestra, the China National Symphony Orchestra, and most of the German Radio Symphony Orchestras. In 2024 he has been invited to perform several times with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He has recorded for the German, Austrian, French, Italian, Korean, and Japanese radio and television.  

After having taught at Hanyang University Seoul, Oliver Kern taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hamburg as professor of piano, before taking his current position as professor of piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Frankfurt where he is head of the piano faculty.  

Akemi Alink was born in Japan. She won prizes in national and international piano competitions and performed in important halls, such as Suntory Hall, Tokyo Opera City recital hall and Munetsugu hall. 
She is also active in Chamber Music and Lieder Accompaniment. Since 2012, she forms a duo with German Mezzo-Soprano Stephanie Gericke. They are giving Lieder recitals in Europe. They also made tour in Japan and gave recitals in 2014, 2016 and 2019.    
Apart from her performances, Akemi also teaches and gave masterclasses in Europe, Japan and the USA. 

As a writer, she contributes articles for books and magazines in Japan and Europe (in Japanese and in English). Since 2013, she has been writing a series of articles “Competition reports from across the world” for the monthly piano magazine “Chopin” in Japan, in total more than 100 times. Akemi also made large reports and interviews about the major International piano competitions in the world, such as the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan, the Sydney Competition in Australia, the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Israel and the Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition in Poland . 

She served as a jury member at Concorso Pianistico Internazionale "Rina Sala Gallo" (Italy), Concurso Internacional de Piano "Premio Jaén" (Spain), Santa Cecilia International Competition (Portugal), Concours International Grand Prix Animato (France), Concours International de Piano des Hauts-de-France (France), Concours International de Piano de Lyon (France), Stasys Vainiunas International Chamber Ensemble Competition (Lithuania), Cincinnati World Piano Competition (USA), Olga Kern International Piano Competition (USA), Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition (USA), BNDES International Piano Competition in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and more. 

Akemi Alink is a Board member of the Alink-Argerich Foundation. She attended more than 100 competitions over the past 20 years. She frequently gives advice to young pianists and competition organizers.

Born in Yerevan, Armenia, Ruben Dalibaltayan (1973) currently lives in Croatia. He works as a Professor at Zagreb and Ljubljana Music Academies. As a Guest Professor he regularly holds masterclasses at the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein, Music Academy in Sarajevo as well as at the “Talent Music Master Courses” in Brescia. Ruben is the President of the Alexander Scriabin Society of Croatia and Artistic Director of Radovljica International Piano Competition in Slovenia. 
Ruben raised a new generation of young pianists who achieved tremendous results and became prize winners of various international competitions as Ferruccio Busoni, Queen Elizabeth, Robert Schumann in Zwickau, Ettlingen, etc. Some of them as Ivan Krpan and Aljosa Jurinic succeeded to make an outstanding international career and became one of the most successful pianists of the young generation.
As part of his pedagogical work, he holds masterclasses on a regular basis in Croatia and abroad. His noteworthy projects include the founding of the piano summer school in Makarska, Croatia in 2005 together with Julia Gubajdullina. The seaside piano master course has since evolved into one of the most prominent events for young pianists in the region. 
He studied in Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music and Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory under the guidance of Anahit Shahbazyan, Arthur Berngardt, and Valery Kastelsky. His professional and personal formation has been greatly influenced by a number of outstanding musicians such as Boris Berlin, Lazar Berman, and Alexis Weissenberg. 
Ruben is a winner of many prestigious international piano competitions in Armenia, China, Croatia, and Italy. His concert tours include numerous countries. The performances range from solo recitals and concerts with Symphony orchestras to participation in chamber ensembles – a piano duo with his wife Julia Gubajdullina and the well-known “Amadeus Trio Zagreb” to be mentioned. 
As a pianist he gives special attention and dedication to the promotion of the works of Armenian composers, interesting and original music inseparably linked to the culture of his native country. In collaboration with the Croatian Radio and Croatian Music Institutе, he recorded the entirety of the piano opus of the famous Croatian composer Blagoje Bersa. For this double CD, Ruben received the highest acknowledgment of the Croatian Ministry of Culture – “Vladimir Nazor Award” for greatest achievements in music and arts.

Boris Bekhterev was born to a family of musicians. He began studying music at the age of five and was educated at Moscow’s Gnessin School of Music, being awarded a medal of merit at his graduation. He continued to improve his mastery until attaining a doctorate with outstanding results at Moscow’s Tchaikowsky Conservatoire, studying under the famous Maestro J. Milstein.
In 1970, having won first prize in the Soviet Pianists’ Competition, he began giving concerts both as a soloist and in duo with the outstanding violinist Vladimir Spivakov. Boris Bekhterev has played at some of the most prestigious concert halls in the Soviet Union, in Europe: Vienna’s Konzerthaus, The Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, La Scala Theatre in Milan, in the United States: New York’s Carnegie Hall, in Japan and other nations. He boasts a very wide repertoire, which extends from the baroque style of Bach and Scarlatti, through Classicism and Romanticism, touching on French Impressionist culture, and arriving at the modern and contemporary composers. A large part of his repertoire consists of works by Russian composers. He has played with many orchestras in the Soviet Union and with chamber orchestras such as the Virtuosi of Moscow, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Budapest and the Prague Chamber Orchestra.
From 1972 to 1986 he taught at the Moscow Conservatoire. During that time, he also ran the Académie Internationale of Tours (France) advanced courses for four years.
From 1987 to 1996, Boris Bekhterev lived in Italy, where he continued to pursue his activities as a concert pianist, giving recitals and playing chamber music with violinists Boris Belkin, Uto Ughi and Pavel Berman, with the flutist, Maxence Larrieu, as well as teaching in various Master Classes. For several years, he has been a member of the “Trio Cesar Franck” (together with the violinist Felice Cusano, and the cellist Susan Moses) and gave concerts in Italy and in the United States.
In 1996 he was invited by Kobe College in Japan to be Professor of Piano and since 1998 he has been teaching also at Mukogawa University. During the 15 years he lived in Japan, he often played recitals and chamber music with well-known musicians from Japan and other countries as well as Lieder programs with famous singers.
He has been invited regularly to be part of the jury of important international competitions. In Japan he was part of the Jury of the most important piano competition in Tokyo “Mainichi Shimbun” for 7 years.
His records have enjoyed a good deal of success. Published by “Melodia” and EMI, they include Schubert’s sonatas, some rarely performed pieces by Prokofiev as well as many works performed together with Vladimir Spivakov. From 1994 to 2003 he recorded 6 CDs of Russian and European music for Phoenix Classics. Since then he has been recording for Camerata Tokyo, Japan. Eight CDs with music of Skriabin and Medtner have been released and have enjoyed very good reviews.
In 2015 he completed recording of all Skriabin compositions for piano solo.
Since 2011 he is back in Italy where he continues his pedagogic and artistic life.