Staffan Scheja, acclaimed Swedish pianist, will perform a special concert at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. His program includes two fantasies from op. 11 (B minor/E minor) by Wilhelm Stenhammar, Fantasy op.17 by Robert Schumann, and Handel-variations op. 24 by Johannes Brahms.
Scheja made his debut at fourteen with Herbert Blomstedt and the Swedish Radio Orchestra. After studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, he was accepted to the Juilliard School in New York, studying with Rosina Lhevinne, Ilona Kabos, and Ania Dorfmann. Receiving the highest prize in the Busoni International Competition in 1975, he has performed concerts all over the world with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, David Zinman, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sixten Ehrling, Okko Kamu and with orchestras, including the Munich Philharmonic, the French Radio Orchestra in Paris, the NHK in Tokyo, the English Chamber orchestra and all the major Scandinavian orchestras.
Scheja has also played at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center with the Oslo Philharmonic, and the White House with Barbara Hendricks. He has made numerous recordings with EMI, BIS, Vanguard, LCM and has represented Sweden at state visits in Mexico and Japan. He recently collaborated with choreographer Mats Ek on a ballet production Another Place at the Opéra Garnier in Paris, where he gave more than 40 performances of the Liszt b minor Sonata. Scheja is the founder and artistic director of the Gotland Chamber Music Festival on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. He has served as vice-Chancellor and Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and currently serves as the college’s Senior Advisor. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Music in Sweden.
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