Sofya Gulyak

Venue: Vancouver Playhouse

Vancouver Chopin Society presents Sofya Gulyak

In September 2009 Sofya Gulyak was awarded 1st prize and the Princess Mary Gold Medal at the Sixteenth Leeds International Piano Competition – the first woman in the history of the competition to achieve this distinction.

Since then she has appeared all over the world to great acclaim. Her recital programs are frequently reviewed in superlatives, and her concerto appearances with major orchestras are noted in glowing terms by the world’s music press. Sofya has been praised for her “tremendous precision and coloration…exquisite soft playing …with delicacy” and described as a “Rach star”(Washington Post).

In recent years, she has been a professor of piano at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2023 she was appointed associate professor at the Jacobs school of Music at Indiana University.

A prolific recording artist, her performances on disc have received ecstatic reviews from some of today’s major critics. Her recording of Brahms’s Handel Variations led one writer to compare her favourably with the young Martha Argerich, and another critic who considered her performance superior to that of Murray Perahia.