Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op.13 "Pathétique": II. Adagio cantabile by Dubravka Tomsic (2024)

The celebrated Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tomsic enjoys "something of a cul… Read Full Bio ↴The celebrated Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tomsic enjoys "something of a cult status among pianophiles" (Gramophone Magazine), with performances that convey "heroic power and Olympian vision" (Los Angeles Times) as well as "splendor, drama, passion, poetry, and subtlety" (Boston Globe). The only protégé of legendary pianist Artur Rubinstein, who considered her "a perfect and marvelous pianist," she gave her first public recital at age five and later embarked on an international career that took her to all five continents, performing more than four thousand concerts to date.

Despite her legendary stature in music circles, it was only in 1989, after a hiatus of almost thirty years, that Tomsic was reintroduced to American audiences with a triumphant gala performance at the Newport Music Festival. In quick succession recitals at the prestigious series of Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Kansas City, Atlanta, Seattle, and Fort Worth followed, leading to countless re-engagements ever since.

Highlights this past season included return engagements to the Slovenia Philharmonic, Monterey Symphony, and Huntsville Symphony.

In April 2008, Tomsic returned to the United States for her annual tour, this time with appearances at the Celebrity Series in Boston, San Francisco Performances, the Master Pianists Series in Kansas City, the Gilmore Festival, concerts in Middlebury and Schenectady, as well as her debut with the Honolulu Symphony. She also performed at the Festival International Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, France, and returned to the London Festival Orchestra. Last season, she opened again at the Newport Festival, made debuts with the Louisiana Philharmonic and the London Festival Orchestra, and returned to the Monterey Symphony with Chopin’s E minor Concerto.

Highlights of recent seasons include several performances with the Boston Symphony under both Seiji Ozawa and Bernard Haitink at Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall, a solo recital at the Tanglewood Festival, the Pasadena Symphony under Jorge Mester, the Mexico City Philharmonic and recitals in Portland, Boston, San Francisco, Kansas City, Rockport, and at New York’s Alice Tully Hall.

Over the course of her career, Tomsic has also been heard in the major halls of Munich, Berlin, Prague, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Budapest, Madrid, Amsterdam, London and Rome and at the international festivals of Dubrovnik, Vienna, Prague, Naples, Dresden, Paris, Mexico City, Joliette (Canada), Newport, Tanglewood, and Mostly Mozart in New York City. Equally in demand as a soloist with orchestra, she has appeared with the Vienna Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, Czech Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony, Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, Dresden Staatskapelle, Moscow State Orchestra, the symphonies of Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, San Francisco and the major orchestras of Australia.

More than eighty CD recordings released since 1987 attest to Dubravka Tomsic’s status as a major recording artist. In addition to The Art of Dubravka Tomsic and a disc of favorite encores, she has recorded concertos by Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Liszt, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saens, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky, and recital works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Mozart, Scarlatti and Srebotnjak. She can be heard on Vox Classics, Koch International and other labels. In 2003 she won the Grand Prix du Disque of the Franz Liszt Society in Budapest for her CD on the ipo label, featuring an all-Liszt program that includes the B minor Sonata.

Tomsic began her studies at the Ljubljana Academy of Music and at age twelve moved to New York on the recommendation of Claudio Arrau to study with Katherine Bacon at the Juilliard School. While still a teenager she earned a Bachelor of Science and Diploma in Piano with two special awards and made her New York Philharmonic, Town Hall and Chicago recital debuts. She also gave a recital at Carnegie Hall about which Artur Rubinstein wrote a glowing account in his memoirs My Many Years.

As a young pianist, Dubravka Tomsic won many awards and competitions and now serves as juror for several major international piano competitions, including the Van Cliburn, Leeds, Beethoven, Clara Haskil, Santander, AXA Dublin and the International Piano-e-Competition in Minneapolis. In May 2005 she was officially awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Ljubljana by the city’s mayor. She makes her home there and is Full Professor at the Ljubljana University - Academy of Music.