Aleksander Szram

Winner of the 2004 Vlado Perlemuter Award, Aleksander enjoys a varied schedule of solo piano, concerto and chamber music performances across the world, having played in more than twenty-five countries over four continents.

Aleksander was born in Southampton to Polish parents, and has been playing the piano since the age of five. He was awarded the Wilner Scholarship to study at Trinity College of Music under Anthony Green and Douglas Finch, where he won prizes for piano, chamber music, vocal accompaniment and composition, including first place in the John Halford and John Longmire Piano Competitions, the John Ireland Chamber Music Prize and the Leonard Smith Duo Prize for Strings and Piano. He also came second in the inaugural PACA Piano Competition. Upon graduation, Aleksander was awarded the TCM Trust Silver Medal, as well as the Haynes Scholarship, the Stopford Scholarship and the Joan Greenfield Fellowship to fund his study for a MMus Degree, which he passed with Distinction. He was subsequently awarded the Worshipful Company of Musicians' Silver Medal for Excellence in Performance, and the Wilfred Stiff Prize. Aleksander has also studied with Martino Tirimo, Mikhail Kazakevich and Yonty Solomon.

Aleksander is particularly interested in the performance of contemporary repertoire and has given world premières of works by Frederic Rzewski, Daryl Runswick, Dai Fujikura, Harris Kittos, Anthony Green, Danny Ledesma, Bushra El-Turk and Hao Weiya among others, leading to the release of his debut CD for the German label Fonorum. Solo programmes have included the complete Tippett Piano Sonatas and several works by Sorabji, Alkan and Ives. Aleksander has performed at the major UK venues, and for many concert societies, including collaborations with Wissam Boustany, Nora Cismondi, Ian Clarke, Paul Edmund-Davies, Philip Fowke, Leonid Gorokhov, Alexander Ivashkin, Lorna McGhee and Ian Pace, and concertos with Jan Latham-Koenig, Peter Stark and Andrew Morley. He has also accompanied masterclasses given by Maxim Vengerov, James Galway, Elly Ameling and Robert Cohen among others. He is one of few pianists who regularly accompanies from memory. With his group, The Lycydas Piano Trio, he gave the UK premiere of the Piano Trio in A minor by Sibelius, and worked with Roger Smalley, receiving an honorary award in 2003 from the Peter the Great Festival in Gröningen, Holland. The Lycydas Trio premiered the Piano Trio by Frederic Rzewski, and their recording of the work has just been released on itunes. Aleksander is an enthusiastic composer, having studied with John Ashton Thomas, Francis Pott and William Benjamin, and also electronic composition with Keith Hamel. Aleksander recently completed his DMA on a full scholarship at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he studied piano with Jane Coop, and harpsichord and organ with Doreen Oke. His doctoral thesis constituted a guide to the performance of Cornelius Cardew's Octet '61 on the piano. He now lectures in Performance Practice at Trinity College of Music, London, and has also guest-lectured at the Royal Academy of Music and at York University. His latest CD recording, of the Scafra Preludes by Daryl Runswick under the supervision of the composer, is currently in production.