Lara Melda

Lara Melda

Lara Melda, formerly Ömeroğlu, (born on 16 December 1993 in London, England) is a concert pianist.

Biography

Melda was born in London to Turkish parents. Her sister, Melis, inspired her to start learning to play the piano.[1] In 2010, Melda was the winner of BBC Young Musician of the Year at the age of sixteen, performing Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2 in the final round, with Vasily Petrenko and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Cardiff.[2] The competition had an international following via television and radio broadcasts on the BBC. Since then she has also performed Mozart's Piano Concerto K. 466 and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Melda is a student at the Royal College of Music where she is a Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Scholar supported by a Musicians' Company Lambert Studentship. She began piano lessons with Emily Jeffrey at the age of six and currently studies with Ian Jones. Melda is also an accomplished viola player and enjoys playing chamber music on both piano and viola. In 2009 she was a finalist in the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar, Germany.

In the autumn of 2013, Melda made her debut performing at the Barbican Centre in London and also with the Britten Sinfonia in a performance of Britten's Young Apollo. Recital performances include Istanbul and her debut at the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg as well as several concerts in the UK. Previous concerto performances have included Rachmaninoff with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Kirill Karabits, Mozart with the Aurora Orchestra and Nicholas Collon (Kings Place) and the Grieg concerto with English Sinfonia (St John's, Smith Square). She has played recitals at Les Sommets Musicaux in Gstaad, Switzerland; the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in Germany and at Wigmore Hall.

Melda during recital at the Zorlu Center PSM

Melda performs regularly in Turkey and made her debut at the International Music Festival in Istanbul in June 2011, playing the Grieg concerto with the Borusan Philharmonic. She has also been presented by the Istanbul Recitals piano series and performed at the Antalya Piano Festival and Boğaziçi University. On 24 March 2012, she received a Promising Artist award from Kadir Has University in Istanbul.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "BBC Young Musician of the Year: Past Winners". BBC. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
  2. ↑ "Lara Ömeroğlu wins BBC Young Musician 2010". BBC. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
  3. ↑ "Commemorating the Legacy of Kadir Has". Kadir Has University. Retrieved 1 April 2012.

External links