Mertol Demirelli

Mertol Demirelli

Turkey

23 y.o.

Education

He began his music studies when he was four years old, and had private piano lessons when he was five. Showing some noticeable talent at the special admission tests, Mertol was accepted at the Bilkent University, Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, Music Preparatory Primary School with full scholarship. He has studied piano with Oya Ünler for four years and with Ersin Onay for a year. He continued his high school education and followed a special program for talented children at the same school by taking courses on Music Theory, Ear Training, with Dr. Orhun Orhon, Composition with Dr. Turgut Pöğün, Dr. Orhun Orhon and Dr. Onur Türkmen and Violin with Eda Özer.

He was accepted at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel (Belgium) in October 2010 with full scholarship and studied piano with Abdel Rahman El Bacha for four years. After, he studied piano under the direction of Maria-Joao Pires (2014), who invited him to the Partitura Project to share the stage on regular occasions (2015). In September 2016, he entered the Haute École de Musique de Vaud-Valais-Fribourg, becoming a student of Ricardo Castro and envisaged to complete the program in two years. As the only pianist accepted to the Master soloist program in 2018, he continued his education in the same institution. At the same time, he started the Piano and Direction courses at Fiesole Music School (Italy, Florence) in 2018. He attended master classes with Gulsin Onay, Muhittin Demiriz, İdil Biret, Edna Golandsky, Dmitri Bashkirov, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, Pietro De Maria, Giovanni Bellucci and Oya Ünler.

Awards

1. At the age of 7, in 2003, he won the IBLA Grand Prize Italy. The price included organization of concerts worldwide. In 2004, Mertol gave concerts at Newcastle (England), in New York including Carnegie Hall, and in Little Rock (Arkansas, USA).

2. In October 2011, he was granted the prize “Young artist of the year, in Germany” during Munich concert.

3. At the age of 23, he won the 2nd prize in the Concert Pianist category at Concours International de Piano d’Île de France (2019)

Concerts

He performed W.A. Mozart’s Concerto for Piano No.11 when he was eight. At 9, the Piano Concerto No.12; at eleven, the Piano Concerto No.23. When he was 10, in 2007, at the opening of 35th International Istanbul Music Festival, he played the J.S. Bach Concerto for Two Pianos, in C minor with İdil Biret at Hagia Eirene Museum. At 12, he played Mozart’s Concerto For Two Pianos with Hüseyin Sermet at Istanbul and Beethoven Triple Concerto in Munich. At 14, he played at the Belgium première of Mozart’ s Violin and Piano Concerto, KV Anh. 56 (315f) in Brussels at Flagey 2011). In the same year he played Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 with Cem Mansur and the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra of Turkey in Istanbul and Munich. He played Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin and Piano (Op.17) with Jean-Claude Casadesusand & The Sinfonia Varshovia at the opening concert of Queen Elisabeth Musical Voyage 2011 in Istanbul. He played Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 in Istanbul at the opening of concert season in 2013.

He performed with Fazil Say at Antalya International Piano Festival concerts in 2004. In 2004-2007 he played at special concerts for the President of Azerbaijan (Ilham Aliyev), for the IMF Vice President (Ann Krueger) and for the President of Israel (Shimon Peres). In 2005-2008, under the invitation of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, he gave concerts in Jordan, Lithuania and Switzerland (Palais des Nations of UN, Geneva). He played at the Spivakov Music Festival in Moskow in 2008; at the Summer of Culture Festival in Bratislava in 2009; at Belgium Royal Palace in 2010; at Vexin Festival in 2012-2014; at Beethoven Festival in Brussels in 2014.

He gave a recital  at Zita in Brussels in 2018. In 2018, he played Liszt Piano Concerto No.1 with Ricardo Castro and Bahia Youth Orchestra (NEOJIBA) in Brazil concerts to prepare the European tour with Martha Argerich. He played Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5 with Roberto Gianola and Eskisehir Metropolitan Municipality Symphony Orchestra (Turkey) in February 2019. He played at Max van der Linden Festival in Brussels in March 2019 and performed a program around the theme of water.

He will give recitals in Graz (July 2019), Rome (October 2019) and Waterloo (November 2019). He will play with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra Galilei in 2020.

Mertol Demirelli gave concerts with orchestras including the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, Antalya, Bursa, Çukurova, Istanbul State Symphony Orchestras, The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic, CRR, Eskisehir Municipality, Doğuş Children’ s, Kaunas Symphony, The Royal Chamber Orchestra of WalloniaOrchestras and Presidential Symphony Orchestra.

He collaborated with many conductors, as Augustin Dumay, Burak Tüzün, Ender Sakpinar, Gürer Aykal, Işın  Metin, Ibrahim Yazici, Kevin Griffiths, Modestas Pitrenas, Oğuzhan Kavruk, Rengim Gökmen and Ricardo Castro.

Envisaged programme

First round

L. van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53  (“The Waldstein”)

M. Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit, “Ondine” in C sharp major

Second round

J. Brahms: The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Händel, Op. 24, in B flat major

F. Liszt, Années de pèlerinage, S. 160, première année, Suisse, Vallée d’Obermann no. 6

Semifinal

J.S.Bach – F. Busoni: Chaconne for violin solo, from Partita II for Violin, BWV 1004

L. van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109

F. Liszt: Transcendental Études S. 139, No.07, “Eroica”

B. Bartók: Out of Doors Suite, Sz. 81, BB 89

Final

P.I. Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in  B flat minor, Op. 23