Guest Artists & Faculty

Teaching Artist/Performer

"A tremendous virtuoso, a great musician with an all-encompassing musical culture." Bruno Monsaingeon 

Dmitry Ablogin is one of today's most brilliant and innovative keyboard artists. 

He studied with Vladimir Tropp at the Gnessin Academy in Moscow, from which he graduated with honours in 2012. He continued his education in Germany, studying fortepiano with Jesper B. Christensen at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt. 

Laureate of the 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments in Warsaw (2018), Dmitry has won prizes in numerous piano competitions, including the Nikolai Rubinstein in Paris, Vera Lotar-Shevchenko in Novosibirsk, German Piano Open in Hanover and Musica Antiqua in Bruges. 

Dmitry has performed in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Russia, France, the US at the Miami International Piano Festival and in Warsaw at the renowned festival “Chopin and his Europe”. 

In addition to performing around the world, he is teaching piano and fortepiano at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt.  

In October 2021 Dmitry has won the 10th International German Piano Award and made his debut at the Alte Oper Frankfurt with Piano Concerto No. 4 by Ludwig van Beethoven. 

Teaching Artist

Praised as “a sovereign master of her art” by the German newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung, we are pleased to welcome for the first time Latvian-born pianist, Dina Yoffe, to the faculty of the Academy and a guest performer of the Festival. Ms. Yoffe is the winner of the 2nd prize in the IX International Chopin Competition and VI International Schumann Piano Competition. She completed her training at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory under the tutelage of legendary piano professor and important proponent of the Heinrich Neuhaus school, Vera Gornostaeva. Dina Yoffe has performed with notable conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Neville Marriner, Valery Gergiev, Dmitri Kitayenko, James De Priest, and Gidon Kremer. She is also an avid chamber musician and has played with many internationally renowned musicians, such as Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, and Vadim Repin, to name but a few. Ms. Yoffe has also served on the jury of the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, and International Cleveland, Hamamatsu, Maria Canals, and Liszt International Competitions.

Teaching Artist 

We are delighted to welcome for the first time to our teaching faculty pianist HaeSun Paik. Ms. Paik has been hailed for her “thoughtful,” “mercurial,” and “unique interpretations” by top reviewers from The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe.  Having garnered top prizes at international piano competitions such as the Queen Elisabeth, Leeds, William Kapell, and the Tchaikovsky, Ms. Paik has performed as soloist and guest performer with orchestras and chamber ensembles around the world, including the Boston, National, London, City of Birmingham, Belgium National, Osaka, NHK, and KBS Symphony Orchestras, the Munich, Radio France, Tokyo, Warsaw, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Russian National Orchestra. She has appeared as soloist under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev, Sir Simon Rattle, Vassily Sinaisky, Dmitri Kitaenko, Stanislav Skrovaczewski, and Myung Whun Chung, to name but a few. A superb collaborative artist, Ms. Paik performed with many distinguished artists including cellists Anner Bylsma, Mischa Maisky, Myung-wha Chung, violist Nobuko Imai, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, the Borromeo String Quartet, and the Jerusalem Quartet. Her duo recording with cellist Laurence Lesser of the complete works by Beethoven for cello and piano was released by Bridge Records. Her debut and subsequent solo recordings can be heard on the EMI label.

Having pursued her musical training in the U.S. from the age of 14 under the guidance of Hwa Kyung Byun and the late Russell Sherman, Ms. Paik has now become one of the most sought-after pedagogues in the world. Her teaching career began early when she was offered a professorship at Seoul National University, the youngest pianist of her generation to receive this honor. Later, she served on the piano faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music and currently teaches at the New England Conservatory. Ms. Paik has served as juror in many international competitions including the Bösendorfer and Yamaha USASU, the Cleveland, the Gina Bachauer, the Hilton Head, the Honens, and the Seoul (Dong-A) international piano competitions.

Teaching Artist

We welcome Professor Wojciech Świtała to our Academy for the first time. Prof. Świtała has graduated from the Katowice Academy of Music under iconic Polish professor Józef Stompel. In the years 1991–1996, he honed his pianistic skills with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Andre Dumortier, and Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden. He won prizes in a number of international piano competitions, most notably in Paris (Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud) and Montreal. Professor Świtała was selected as the best Polish participant in the 12th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, when he received the prize for “the best performance of a polonaise” among a number of other prizes. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician in most countries of Europe and the Americas.

Świtała has recorded up to twenty discs for Polskie Nagrania, Bearton, DUX, Sony Music Polska and IMC, with music by Brahms, Liszt, Schumann, Debussy, Chopin, Szymanowski and Zarębski. In 2000 and 2005, his discs won twice the Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin, and in 2002 and 2009 he won a Polish “Grammy” award, the prestigious “Fryderyk” award by the Polish music industry. Since 1998, he has also pursued pedagogical work. From 2008 to 2012, he was deputy vice-chancellor for learning and didactics at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, where he has been the Chair of the Piano Department since 2012. Prof. Świtała has been a juror of many competitions, including of the Long-Thibaud (Paris) and Paderewski (Bydgoszcz) international competitions, and the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. In 2014, he was appointed to the Program Committee of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute. His recordings for the Institute include Chopin’s Ballades for their “white series” and the Chopin Preludes on a period instrument, which received accolades from BBC Classic.

Teaching Lecturer

Professor John Rink of University of Cambridge is a frequent guest of the Academy, having offered us highly popular workshops since 2019. He is one of the world's foremost authorities on the music of Fryderyk Chopin and a prize-winning author. Prof. Rink is an expert on the manuscripts and printed sources for Chopin's works, as well as the performance history of Chopin’s music over the past two centuries. He is Editor in Chief of “The Complete Chopin – A New Critical Edition”, published by Peters Edition London, and has directed three major online projects focused on Chopin (www.chopinonline.ac.uk), in addition to producing acclaimed editions of the two piano concertos. Much of his recent work as a performer focuses on period instruments, including the Pleyel pianos that Chopin himself favored. Prof. Rink served on the jury of the last two International Chopin Competitions in Warsaw. In addition to his post as Professor of Musical Performance Studies at the University of Cambridge, he is also Visiting Professor at prestigious institutions in London, Singapore, and China.

Teaching Lecturer

Edward Auer's musical career began in his childhood in Los Angeles, where he won competition prizes,
presented solo and chamber concerts, and gave guest performances on television programs. As a
student at the Juilliard School, Auer won the yearly concerto competition; he made his New York début with a recital at Carnegie Hall. In 1965, he was the first American to win a prize at the Seventh International Chopin Competition in Warsaw; this was followed by successes at the Beethoven Competition in Vienna, Concours Marguerite Long, and Tchaikovsky Competition, the last garnering him an invitation to the White House. 

With a performance career spanning over 30 countries on five continents, Auer has given numerous solo recitals and concertos with top international orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Paris Orchestre Philharmonique, and Berlin Radio Orchestra. He has appeared at prominent international festivals including Salzburg, and served as a juror for the International Chopin Competition and Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, among many others. 

For nearly 40 years, Auer has taught at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington; he has held guest professorships at Toho Gakuen and Seoul National University. He initiated the Edward Auer Piano Workship in 1995, expanding it in 2007 into an annual international festival. Known for his recordings of Chopin’s works, he is currently preparing the Mazurka Project; previous releases include the Preludes, Waltzes, Ballades, Nocturnes, Scherzos, and Concertos.