The pianist Michèle Gurdal is a “rare, authentic Romantic” (Dimitir Bashkirov). She is appraised for her rich cultivation of sound, her art of “opening far-reaching spaces of sound for the audience” also for “her interpretations, as sensitive as they are thrilling, which immerse the listener deeply into the atmospheric worlds conjured up by the music” (Rondo magazine).
Michèle Gurdal was only nine years of age when she played the solo in Joseph Haydn’s Piano Concerto in G Major with the Belgian Chamber Orchestra live on Belgian television. At the age of eleven she played the Impromptu Op. 90 no.4 by Franz Schubert on French television (FR3) with a musicality and power of expression that were astonishingly mature for her age. She was much praised for this interpretation by the conductor Jean-Claude Casadesus: “she has gold in her fingers”.
By the age of seventeen she had already completed her studies at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles in piano, chamber music and music history with the Diplom de Premier Prix. She studied with Professor Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the University of Music and Theatre in Hanover, then in the master class of Homero Francesch in Zurich (concert diploma with highest distinction) and in conclusion with Professor Anatol Ugorski at the University of Music in Detmold, completed with her concert examination.
In 2005 she won the scholarship for the “International Piano Academy Lake Como”. In addition she was awarded the scholarship of the Wilhelm Kempff Foundation, focusing on an in-depth study – together with John O’Connor –of the work of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Since her ninth birthday her concert career as a soloist and chamber musician has taken her throughout Europe, also Canada and the USA. Among Michèle Gurdal’s appearances most worthy of mentions are concerts in the Gewandhaus Leipzig, Tonhalle Zurich, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Eglise de Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, Theater Ghione in Rome, Laeiszhalle Hamburg and the Berlin Philharmonie. She performed as a soloist with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra at the Ruhr Piano Festival and among others with the Orchestre National de Belgique, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie and with the Cordoba Symphony Orchestra on Spanish and also Italian television (RAI3).
Michèle Gurdal avails of an extensive repertoire with a strong focus on the music of Alexander Scriabin. In 2010 a CD was released juxtaposing the 24 Preludes of Frédéric Chopin with those of Alexander Scriabin (Kaliedos 2010). In February 2014 a CD came out with chamber music by Robert Schumann (Vlad Records), in which she performed with the violist Máté Szücs and the clarinettist Vlad Weverbergh. In Mai 2014 the CD „Extase“ with Etudes from A. Scriabin (Challenge Records) was released and received rave reviews among others by the the gramophone magazine as an editor‘s choice.
Michèle Yuki Gurdal comes from a Belgian-Japanese family and lives in Berlin.