Dima Tkachenko-violin (Ukraine) Roman Lopatynskyi-piano (Ukraine)

Dima Tkachenko- violin   Ukraine-born violinist Dima Tkachenko started playing the violin and piano before the age of 6. He studied at the Lysenko Music School in Kyiv, graduating to the National Music Academy of Ukraine (former Kyiv Conservatoire) studying under Bogodar Kotorovych and Yaroslava Rivniak. In 1998 he was invited to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under Yfrah Neaman. In 2002 Dima was made a Fellow of the Guildhall School and until 2008 was working with Krzysztof Smietana and David Takeno. Dima Tkachenko was awarded the Guildhall School Concert Recital Diploma (Premier Prix) and was a prize-winner at several international violin competitions including the Carl Nielsen Competition (Odense, Denmark), the Lysenko Competition (Kyiv, Ukraine) and the Wronski Solo Violin Competition (Warsaw, Poland). He has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas and performed at such venues as London’s Wigmore Hall, Barbican and Cadogan Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Toronto’s Roy Tomson Hall, Cologne Philharmonie, Moscow’s Great Hall of the Conservatoire, Tokyo Opera City, Liszt Academy Hall in Budapest, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Megaron in Athens, Palau de Musica in Barcelona and Auditorio Nacional in Madrid. His recent performances include appearances with the MAV Symphony Orchestra in Budapest, the Russian Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra in Moscow (with live broadcast on Russian TV), the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra and the Presidential Symphony Orchestra in Ankara (Turkey), the Istanbul Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, the Cracow Philharmonic, the Symphony Orchestra of Chile in Santiago, the Athens State Orchestra, the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra, the EuroAsia Symphony in Astana (Kazakhstan), tours in Spain and Germany, also recitals in the UK, Ukraine, France, Japan, Singapore, the USA, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary and Poland. In 2017 he performed Tchaikovsky and Stankovych No. 2 Concertos all over the US and Canada, in the extensive American Tour with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. Apart from his busy concert career, Dima Tkachenko presently teaches at the National Music Academy of Ukraine, gives masterclasses (the recent ones in Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, Turkey, Malta, Poland and Lithuania), goes on jury to several international competitions, is the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Benjamin Britten International Music Competitions in London and the Artistic Director of the Lysenko International Music Competition in Kyiv, Ukraine.   Roman Lopatynskyi-piano   Roman Lopatynskyi was born in Kiev in 1993 and started to play the piano at the age of five and just after three years already won his first special prize. In 2009 the young pianist entered the class of Boris Petrushansky at the International Academy Incontri con il Maestro in Italy. In the same year, he started studying with Sergii Riabov at the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine.  Lopatyinskyi is a laureate of over 20 international piano competitions, such as Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, Busoni Competition in Bolzano, Italy and “V. Horowitz” International Piano Competition in Kiev, “Luciano Luciani” competition in Cosenza and the “Russian piano music” competition in San Remo. He was a member of the Heidelberg Festival Academy in 2017. He is a regular guest of renowned international concert halls and festivals such as Ginza Hall, Tokyo, Steinway Hall, New York, the Mariinsky International Piano Festival, St. Petersburg, the Next Generation Festival in Bad Ragaz, Switzerland,  the Festival Heidelberger Frühling and shared successful collaborations with the National Symphony Orchestra and the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the German Radio Philharmonic Saarbrücken, Arena di Verona Orchestra  and the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. He also had a debut in Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Vienna.