HUI-YING LIU-TAWASTSTJERNA (The University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland)
19 February @10.00–13.00 & 14.00-16.00 in C-405
20 February @10.00-13.00 & 14.00-17.00 in Great Hall

ERIK TAWASTSTJERNA (The University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland)
19-20 February @10.00–12.00 & 13.00-15.00 in B-303

Pianist Hui-Ying Liu-Tawaststjerna was born in Taiwan. She became a permanent resident of Finland in1982, after having lived in several other countries. She holds a Doctor of Music degree from the Sibelius Academy, and a Master’s degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Her principal teachers included Emane Wu, Martin Canin and Konrad Wolff. She also received coaching from Leon Fleisher, Pierre Sancan, Karl Ülrich Schnabel, and Rosa Sabater.

Hui-Ying won her first piano competition in Taipei at age 13. Her ensuing competition success preceded her recital debut in Buenos Aires at age 15, and her orchestral debut in New York at age 17. Ever since she made her Carnegie Recital Hall debut as a winner of Artists International Management’s auditions, she has concertized as recitalist, soloist with orchestra, chamber pianist and collaborating pianist on five continents. She has shared podium with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Okko Kamu, Eri Klas, and with instrumentalists such as Steven Isserlis, Paul Tortelier, Patrick Gallois, Jean-Jacque Kantorow, among others. She also performs regularly as a piano duo with her husband Erik T. Tawaststjerna. She has made recordings for the Finlandia Records, and the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE. Her repertoire ranges from Bach to Magnus Lindberg, including a large selection of piano works and chamber music by Sibelius, Beethoven, Chopin, and Debussy.  

Hui-Ying has been a tenured faculty member of the Sibelius Academy since 1984. She has taught a number of outstanding pianists and competition winners such as Antti Siirala, Juho Pohjonen, and Irina Zahharenkova, to mention but a few. She has also given master classes, workshops and lectures in Germany, England, Spain, Ireland, the U.S, Taiwan, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, among others. She was head of the Piano Department in 2004–2008. In addition, she has co-authored a piano method, Piano Key. Presently as the president of the Chopin Society of Finland, Hui-Ying engages herself actively in the promotion of young musicians, classical music and performing arts in general. She is one of the main architects of such musical events as the Baltic-Nordic Crossing Keyboards; the Young Chopin Festival, and the MusicPlus concerts. She received a decoration,Cross of Merit of the Order of the White Rose, from the President of Finland in 2006.

Erik T. Tawaststjerna is Professor Emeritus at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. He began his musical education in Helsinki, took private lessons in Moscow from Genrietta Mirvis, graduated from the Vienna Music Academy, where he studied with Dieter Weber, and earned a Master of Music degree from New York’s Juilliard School, where his teacher was Sascha Gorodnitzki. He also holds a doctorate from New York University where he studied under the guidance of Eugene List. He has participated in master classes given by Wilhelm Kempff and Dmitri Bashkirov. He won the second prize at the Helsinki Maj Lind National Piano Competition in 1968 and has since given concerts around the world. He has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras in Finland, performing such works as Rachmaninoff’s Concerto no. 3 and Leonard Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety. In 1990 he was invited to give a performance for Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko at the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo. Mr. Tawaststjerna has made numerous recordings, among them the four Ballades of Chopin and a series of 8 recordings of the complete piano music of Jean Sibelius. He has been teaching since 1982 at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where he was appointed full professor of piano in 1986. Many of his students have received top prizes in international piano competitions, and some of them have advanced to the position of university professor: Henri Sigfridsson in Essen, Germany, Victor Chestopal in Brussels, and Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist in Arvika, Sweden. Mr. Tawaststjerna’s expertise has been called upon in the juries of several competitions, such as the Van Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth, the Maria Canals Competition in Barcelona, the Dublin Piano Competition, the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna, the London International Piano Competition, the Hilton Head Piano Competition, the New York International Piano Competition, the Weimar Liszt Competition, the José Iturbi Competition in Valencia, the Isang Yun Competition in South Korea, the Prokofiev Competition in St Petersburg, the Ciurlionis and Vainiunas Competitions in Vilnius, the Aarhus International Competition in Denmark, and the Mozart Competition in Zhuhai, China. He has given master classes, among other places, at the Guildhall School of Music in London, the University of the Arts in Berlin, the Tokyo College of Music, the YST Conservatory in Singapore, and the Vienna University of Music and the Performing Arts. In 2006 he was named ‘Professor of the Year’ by the Finnish Professors’ League.