Oskar Jezior plays Mozart Piano Quartet E-flat Major K. 493

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W.A. Mozart (1756-1791):
Piano Quartet No.2 in E-flat Major, K. 493
I. Allegro
II. Larghetto
III. Allegretto

Sara Etelävuori, violine
Dalia Stasevska, viola
Joona Pulkkinen, cello
Oskar Jezior, piano
(live at the Helsinki International Maj Lind Piano Competition 2012)

Born in 1985 in Warsaw, Oskar Jezior grew up in Bremen, Germany. At the age of six he received his first violin lessons. Piano lessons started shortly after and his early years have allowed a prodigious talent to develop in several directions. Aged 15 he was Bremen's youngest ever student accepted into the Hochschule für Künste. In 2012, he completed his course at the Juilliard School in New York with Matti Raekallio on piano. During his time at the Juilliard School, he won the Gina Bachauer Piano Competition 2011, and subsequently made his debut at Lincoln Center, which was broadcast on New York radio station WQXR. He is currently enrolled in the prestigious Artist Diploma program at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hanover, Germany, where he studies with Markus Becker.

Appearances at important venues have already included the Orchard Hall/Bunkamura Tokyo, the Oji Hall Tokyo, the Pheonix Hall Osaka, New York's Weill Recital Hall, the National Philharmony Vilnius, the National Philharmony Warsaw, the National Opera Warsaw, the Helsinki Music Centre, the Théâtre de Vevey, the Palau de la Música de Barcelona, the Laeiszhalle/Musikhalle Hamburg, the Schauspielhaus Berlin, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Stadhalle Braunschweig, and Bremen's Die Glocke Philharmonic Hall. He has been a guest artist at the Bowdoin, Gdansk Spring, Braunschweig Classix as well as Schwetzingen Festivals, and has been soloist with the Warsaw National Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bremen Philharmonic, the Poznan Philharmonic, the Lublin Philharmonic and the Warsaw Chamber Orchestra under such conductors as Tomasz Bugaj, Antoni Wit, Ernest Martínez-Izquierdo, Alexander Walker, Johan Farjot, and Mihkel Kuetson. He is already familiar to TV and radio audiences in Germany, Poland, Finland, USA, and Japan.

He is currently sponsored by the Hermann-Grevesmühl-Society and plays on a Vuilliaume violin loaned to him by the Sparkasse Bremen. From 2002 until 2006 he had a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German National Study Foundation). In 2011, he was awarded the highest national scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service). He also received the prestigious "Geh' Deinen Weg" scholarship from the German chancellor Angela Merkel as one of very few musicians. Strong musical influences on him have been Josef Bayerlein, Wanda Wilkomirska, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Ida Haendel, and Arie Vardi. His musical association with Wanda Wilkomirska resulted in numerous concerts playing either violin or piano.

In 2006, "Polskie Nagrania" released his debut CD featuring Ludwig van Beethoven's piano sonatas Op.106 "Hammerklavier" and Op.110 to wide critical acclaim. In 2007, he recorded songs by Wagner and Szymanowski with Malgorzata Walewska for DUX. He has won prizes at several international piano competitions: Piano Campus 2010 in Pontoise, France (2nd prize), the 2009 European Piano Contest in Bremen, Germany (2nd prize), the Beethoven Competition "R. Laugs" 2008 in Mannheim, Germany (2nd prize), as well as the "Herder Loge Bremen" Piano Competition in 2005 (1st prize & audience prize). In 2012, he reached the final round of the Helsinki International Maj Lind Piano Competition, where he performed J. Brahms' Piano Concerto no.2 live on Finnish national television.

Since early childhood he has also been a composer and the recipient of numerous awards such as a first prize from Germany's "Schüler komponieren" competition. Sponsored by the Yamaha Music Foundation, he was selected from amongst 40,000 applicants to appear at the Junior Original Concerts in Tokyo on television performing some of his own works. In 2008, he composed the film music for the documentary film "Wanda Wilkomirska -- I'll Play It for You" for Polish television TVP1. In 2010, he edited and wrote the screenplay for two documentary films: "Why Competitions", a film about the Chopin piano competition in Warsaw, and "This Is My Heritage", an account of British-Polish violinist Ida Haendel's life and work. He also produced the music score for both films.