Luiza Borac

Winner of over 50 prizes and distinctions pianist Luiza Borac has been described as „most poetic artist“ by the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Joachim Kaiser), an „ever-resourceful and imaginative pianist” (Gramophone) and a “formidable interpreter” (San Francisco Chronicle).  She has won top prizes at the Edvard Grieg International Piano Competition where she was awarded also Prix d’Oslo, Special Prize for Grieg’s Lyrical Pieces and the Audience Prize, Mendelssohn Berlin Piano Competition, George Enescu International Piano Competition, Gina Bachauer in Salt Lake City, Viotti-Valsesia Italy, Gheorghe Dima, Sigismund Toduta Romanian National Piano Competitions, Taormina International Piano Competition etc.

“Pianist of the Month at Saint-Martin-in-the Fields“ and the first female Romanian pianist to perform at the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles Borac won a Carnegie Hall Debut Prize and has since appeared in some of the most prestigious concert halls around the world, including Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Cologne Philharmonie and Barbican Centre London. She has performed with the Academy-of-Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Utah Philharmonic Orchestra, WDR Cologne, NDR Hannover, Bucharest Radio Orchestra, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, with conductors Peter Ruzicka, Vladimir Jurowski, Cristian Măcelaru, Gerd Schaller, Jaime Martin, Horia Andreescu, Ka Chun Wong a.o. She has played with Belcea Quartett, Isabelle van Keulen, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Daishin Kashimoto, Sherban Lupu, Mirel Iancovici and made successful appearances at the Aldeburgh Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, George Enescu Festival, Michelangeli Piano Festival, Prokofiev Festival a.o.

Luiza Borac has been universally applauded by publications including BBC Music Magazine, Piano News, Pianist, Diapason, Gramophone Magazine, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, American Record Guide, Los Angeles Times, Fono Forum, Der Spiegel etc.

For her performances on the Avie and Profil Haenssler Labels her records have won a BBC Music Award (2007) and have been nominated for the Opus Klassik and ICMA Awards in the categories “Best Recording”, “Best Soloist” and “Best Assorted Programmes” (2021).

Luiza Borac’s world premiere recordings of her great compatriot George Enescu – the complete solo piano music, the newly-discovered Piano Concerto and the Piano Fantasy – caused a sensation and were greeted as „ground-breaking discoveries” by the international music press, being amongst the first recordings to bring Enescu’s music to wider prominence. They were internationally highly acclaimed for Luiza’s idiomatic performances: “excellent playing” (Gramophone), “best performance” (BBC Music Magazine). She was also awarded a summa cum laude for her doctoral thesis dedicated to the piano music of George Enescu, as well as Awards and Diplomas of Honor from the Romanian Embassy in Berlin for bringing Romanian culture to the world, the Romanian Radio Cultural Broadcast, the Unimir and the Prometheus Foundations, and the Actualitatea Muzicala for promoting Romanian music worldwide.

The first pianist ever to have recorded the complete piano music by the 3 Romanian composers George Enescu, Dinu Lipatti and Constantin Silvestri Borac has been described as “the greatest living exponent of her compatriot’s endlessly revelatory piano music”.

Luiza Borac has recorded extensively for CD and Radio productions to great critical acclaim. Her recorded repertoire includes Piano Concertos by Grieg, Schumann, Chopin, Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, Liszt, Lipatti, Enescu, Walton, solo and chamber works by Schubert, Janacek, Godowski, Chopin 24 Etudes, Debussy 12 Etudes, Liszt 12  Transcendental Etudes, Transcriptions, Paraphrases and Années de Pèlerinage, Mozart Sonatas and Variations, Ravel Gaspard de la nuit etc. Her recordings were selected as ‘Joker Decouverte’ at Crescendo, ,Star of the Month‘ Fono Forum, Outstanding at International Record Review, CD of the 2 Months’ Piano News‚ CD of the Month‘ International Piano, ‘CD of the Day’ Radio Frankfurt, 5 Stars of BBC Music Magazine, The Times, Pizzicato, International Piano, Straits Times and Radio Berlin-Brandenburg, ‘CD of the Year’ Radio Bucharest, Norman Lebrecht’s Sinfini CD of the Week, ‘Le Disque de Jour’ Artamag etc.

Highlights of past season include recordings of piano music by Constantin Silvestri, György Kurtàg and Dinu Lipatti’s Symphonic Dances with Cristian Macelaru and the WDR Orchestra, as well as a European tour to the 100th anniversary of Dinu Lipatti.

As a producer on her acclaimed Album Chants nostalgiques Borac has created an unprecedented experiment by juxtaposing historical recordings of legendary tenor Ion Buzea – winner of the George Enescu International Singing Competition 1958 – with her own playing captured through modern technology (“a veritable tour de force” Gramophone).

As a promoter of female artists, Luiza dedicated unique and highly acclaimed European tours (2016) to Alice Herz-Sommer, the world’s oldest pianist whom she personally met, and to Clara Schumann for her 200th anniversary (2019). Luiza met Alice Herz-Sommer in London during the recording of the 24 Chopin Etudes. Her interview was featured in the Portfolio of the Oscar-winning film “The Lady at Number 6”. Being one of the first recipients of the Dorothea-Erxleben Award (named after the first woman in history licensed to practice medicine in the world) Borac premiered, recorded, and performed in concerts a large number of works written by female composers. As International Record Review notes, “Borac is one of the most compelling pianists of today”.

A true visionary in building cultural bridges and making classical music more accessible to the wider public especially to young audiences Borac held music conferences throughout the world with programs like “Music-in-our-School” at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition – USA’s 2nd largest Piano Competition, of which Luiza was a recipient of the Silver Medal  – where she met with over 3000 children.

“A social force with a healing vision” (Fanfare USA), Luiza Borac works with various internationally recognised charities. Such projects included the Menorah project for the Jewish victims of Schaumburg-Lippe in North Germany, FARA and other Romanian charity projects in Great Britain and Germany which support orphans and street children in the artist’s native country. In 2017 the UNESCO city of Albi has awarded her the honorific title of “Ambassadrice de la Cité épiscopale” and also its Medal of Honor in recognition of her involvement in EndPolioNow, an international project. 2018 she received in Germany the Paul Harris Medal and Rotary’s highest Honorary Distinction.

In Romania her piano teachers were Irina Satchi, Lavinia Coman and Gabriel Amiras. A young artist in residence of the London Symphony Orchestra Borac has been mentored by Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, Jan Ekier, Leon Fleisher, Dmitri Bashkirov, William Grant Naboré and Fou Ts’ong. Luiza Borac graduated from the Bucharest and Hanover Colleges of Music with the highest distinctions and pursued masterclasses at the Julliard School of Music New York and Como International Piano Foundation under artistic director Martha Argerich.

Borac has served on many juries of piano competitions like Gina Bachauer, Bechstein, Walter Gieseking, San Nicola di Bari, Massarossa, Ennio Porrino Cagliari, taught at the Hanover and Mozarteum Salzburg Academies of Music, and at masterclasses worldwide. Her students won prestigious piano competitions and embraced successful musical careers as concert pianists, chamber musicians and lied accompanists.

Luiza is a Steinway Artist since 1998 and has been included on Steinway Wall of Fame.