Lada Valešová

Lada Valešová has been acclaimed as “one of the most gifted of all accompanists currently before the public.” ( Music Opinion ). She is a graduate of Prague Conservatoire and Prague Music Academy. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the National Opera Studio in London.

Her teachers include Russian pianist and pedagogue Valentina Kamenikova and Eugene Indjic, outstanding pianist and pupil of Arthur Rubinstein. James Gibb and Paul Hamburger were her teachers in London. Lada has won several prizes including two awards at the International Smetana Piano Competition. She is a winner of the Alexander Wise Memorial Prize for the best performance of romantic music as well as Prize for the Best Piano Duo together with Zoë Mather for their performance of Bartok’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Strings. Lada is a busy concert artist having played recitals in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Great Britain and New Zealand both as an accompanist and a soloist. She has performed at the Wigmore Hall, St. John’s Smith Square and at the Lindbury Studio, ROH and was a recitalist in the Chamber Music Concert Series of Czech Philharmonics in Prague. Her performance with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Germany led to CD recording with the orchestra. She has performed at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford, Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival and Warwick International Music Festival among others.

She has also performed in Ulverston International Music Festival, Festivais de Outono, Portugal, and in the Pollock House, Glasgow, partnering young outstanding Portuguese bass Joao Fernandes. She was featured on the BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and Classic FM New Zealand.

Lada has been asked by award winning director Phil Grabsky to perform and give an interview in his feature documentary In Search in Mozart, which marked the 250^th anniversary of Mozart’s birth and has been screened and broadcasted on TV channels worldwide. Lada’s piano playing has received high recognition from various artists including the late Sir George Solti who offered her his “unqualified support “ and she had the honour of working with Galina Vishnevskaja and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Lada is regularly invited to give masterclasses to young singers and accompanists on Russian, Czech and general vocal repertoire at places such as Conservatoire de Paris, Conservatoire de Lyon, at Casa da Musica in Portugal and for Emerging Artists at the Opera New Zealand.

Her recent engagements included a tour of Ireland with Mairead Buick and Seung-Wook Seong and performance of Winterreise with Joao Fernandes at the Dias da Musica em Belem International Festival in Lisbon, both to great critical acclaim.

In her capacity as a Czech and Russian vocal coach she has worked in UK with singers such as Mark Stone, Sally Matthews, Julian Gavin, Joan Rogers, Ann-Marie Owens, Anne-Sophie Duprez, Orla Boylan, Kim Begley, Simon O’Neill and others, as well as at UK major opera houses and festivals.

Lada will release her debut CD of Czech 20^th century Czech piano music on Avie label in the autumn this year.

She is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK, where she directs the Russian Song Class and works as a vocal coach.