Marcel Poot (1901-1988), the son of Jan Poot, director of the Royal Flemish Theatre, grew up in an artistic milieu. He took his first music lessons with the organist Gerard Nauwelaerts and subsequently studied solfège, piano and harmony from 1916 to 1919 at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels with Arthur De Greef, José Sevenans and Martin Lunssens. His first prizes in counterpoint (1922) and fugue (1924) were earned at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp with Lodewijk Mortelmans. He also studied composition and orchestration privately with Paul Gilson.

Together, Poot and Gilson published La Revue Musicale Belge, a periodical that appeared starting in 1925. In that same year, he and seven other of Gilson’s students set up the group known as Les Synthétistes, which aimed to create a synthesis of the achievements of current musical evolutions, without sacrificing their individuality. In 1930, he won the Rubens Prize, which allowed him to study for three years with Paul Dukas at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.

Marcel Poot began his career at the State Secondary School in Vilvoorde and also taught piano, solfège and music history at the music academy in that city. He taught practical harmony (1939) and counterpoint (1940-1949) at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels before becoming director of that school (1949-1966). Besides this, he was a lecturer at the Institut Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs, headmaster of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel (1970-1976), a member of the Royal Flemish Academy for Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts, a jury member for the Queen Elisabeth Competition (1963-1981), chairman of SABAM (composers’ rights organisation), the Union of Belgian Composers and CISAC (the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), and he was a jury member for various composition competitions.

André Dumortier (1910-2004) est un professeur de piano et un soliste qui a traversé le siècle qui vient de s'achever. Il est né à Comines en 1910 et a vécu sa première enfance dans un milieu de musiciens amateurs. La guerre, et ses vicissitudes, le conduit à quitter sa ville natale.

En 1919, il s'installe à Tournai et entre à l'Ecole des Frères. Sa sensibilité musicale fait qu'il entre bientôt dans la Maîtrise de la Cathédrale où il découvre le plain-chant et la polyphonie, formant si bien l'oreille. Parallèlement, il entame des études de piano au Conservatoire de Tournai. Ses progrès sont rapides car il possède une base solide acquise auprès de sa mère, qui enseignait le piano. En 1920, il donne un premier récital à Comines, avec une sonate de Mozart au programme.

L'événement fondateur est, comme il l'affirme souvent, la découverte de 'La Damnation de Faust', de Berlioz, exécutée à Tournai en 1922. Ainsi, des premières mélodies chantées par sa mère, au grand orchestre avec chœurs, le jeune musicien découvre les différentes strates sur lesquelles repose la musique classique occidentale. Sérieux et sensible tout à la fois, il met ces deux qualités au service d'un don exceptionnel. Il sera musicien !

Ayant obtenu son Prix de piano en 1925, André Dumortier entre au Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, dans la classe de José Sévenants. Ce dernier a été l'assistant d'Arthur De Greef qui, lui-même, s'est imprégné de l'enseignement de Franz Liszt. Premier Prix de piano en 1927, il remporte le Premier Prix de Virtuosité en 1931. En 1935, il accompagne le jeune Arthur Grumiaux, et joue dans la salle du Conservatoire de Paris.

En 1938, il est lauréat du Concours Eugène Ysaÿe, le futur Concours Reine Elisabeth. Une série de concerts le mènent un peu partout en Belgique, mais aussi en France, en Hollande et en Angleterre. Il réalise ses premiers enregistrements au cours d'un séjour à Londres. Sa double carrière se confirme, après la guerre, en tant que soliste et pédagogue. C'est ainsi qu'il devient professeur de piano au Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles en 1946 jusqu'à sa retraite en 1977. Parallèlement, il assume la direction du Conservatoire de Tournai de 1954 à 1976.

D'autres voyages le mènent au Congo, au Portugal, en Italie, en Suisse, en Suède et en U.R.S.S. Depuis 1988, il anime les Stages d'interprétation et de perfectionnement à Tournai. On le retrouve dans d'autres 'master-classes', à Auxerre et Bayonne.

André Dumortier a réalisé plusieurs enregistrements, et il existe un double CD portant sur les deux concertos de Weber ainsi que sur des œuvres de Franck et Lekeu.

Au cours de sa carrière, il a fait partie de nombreux jurys : Concours Reine Elisabeth, Chapelle musicale Reine Elisabeth, Conservatoires Royaux et étrangers. Des 'Entretiens', suivis d'une biographie de l'artiste, ont été édités par la maison de la culture de Tournai en décembre 2001.

Malcolm Frager was a younger contemporary of Leon Fleischer (b. 1928), John Browning (b. 1933), and Van Cliburn (b. 1934). Like them he became a major prizewinner, starting with the Michaels Memorial Award in Chicago, followed by the Leventritt in 1959, and a year later the Queen Elisabeth Competition.

At the age of 14 Malcolm Frager undertook six years of study in N.Y.C. with Carl Friedberg, a pupil of Clara Schumann, and during that period was privately educated. He went on to Columbia University, majoring in Russian studies and graduating in 1957. The Leventritt Award opened doors both in the U.S. and abroad; he made his first concert tour in 1959. In 1963 he played not only in Central and South America, but in the U.S.S.R. for the first (but not last) time. In 1969, he added the Far East to his concert itinerary, and Australia in 1969.

His specialties included Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Schumann, but not at the expense of twentieth-century composers, Prokofiev and Bartók in particular. He spent considerable time in search of original versions of music, unearthing the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 that Nicolas Rubinstein had damned so brutally in 1875, and the 1841 Fantasie in A minor that later became the first movement of Schumann's only Piano Concerto. He became interested in eighteenth-century fortepianos on which he played and recorded Haydn and Mozart and wrote scholarly articles in his free time.

Né en 1918 à Saïgon, Raymond Gallois Montbrun quitte sa ville de naissance dès sa petite enfance et effectue ses études scolaires à Neuilly-sur-Seine. De 1930 à 1942 il étudie au Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris, auprès de Firmin Touche (violon), Jean Gallon (harmonie), Noël Gallon (fugue et contrepoint) et Henri Busser (composition musicale).

En 1942 il gagne le Premier Second Grand Prix de Rome de composition musicale avec la cantate Pygmalion délivré et en 1944 le Premier Grand Prix de Rome de composition musicale avec la cantate Louise de la Miséricorde, sur un texte de Charles Clerc.

Entre 1944 et 1957 il mène une double carrière de violoniste concertiste et de compositeur. Il fait de nombreuses tournées de concerts en Europe, en U.R.S.S., en Afrique du Nord, au Moyen et Extrême-Orient et enregistre des disques pour Erato-France. À l'Institut Français de Tokyo il donne des cours de violon, d'écriture et de composition musicale de 1952 à 1954. Parallèlement, il donne des conférences au Japon, en Allemagne et au Canada sur l'enseignement musical français.

Directeur de l'Ecole nationale de musique de Versailles entre 1957 et 1962, Raymond Gallois Montbrun crée avec la Municipalité le Festival de Versailles. En 1962, il devient Président de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire (jusqu'en 1967) et Directeur du Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris (jusqu'en 1983). Il est ensuite Directeur artistique du Concours international Long-Thibaud, Président des 5 Académies de l'Institut de France, Président intérimaire du Concours international Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud et Président du Comité Directeur du Concours international Long-Thibaud.

En 1980 Raymond Gallois Montbrun est élu Membre titulaire de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts au fauteuil de Paul Paray. Il est également Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, Grand Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite, Commandeur des Arts et Lettres et Membre de l'Institut.

Emil Gilels was born in Odessa. He did not come from a musical family: his father worked as a clerk in the sugar refinery and his mother looked after the large family. At the age of five and a half he was taken to Yakov Tkach, a famous piano pedagogue in Odessa. He completed his first period of studies with unprecedented ease. In 1929 aged twelve, he gave his first public concert. In 1930 he was accepted to the conservatory in Odessa into the class of Berta Reingbald. Her main goal was his participation in the First All-Union Competition of Performers which was announced to take place in 1933 in Moscow. Gilels’ playing created a sensation - when he finished his programme the auditorium rose up in tumultuous ovation and even the jury stood to applaud. The question of first prize was not even discussed: in a unanimous decision Gilels was announced the winner. The competition changed Emil’s life - he was suddenly famous throughout the land. Following the competition, Gilels embarked on an extensive concert tour around the USSR.

Gilels graduated from the Odessa Conservatory in the autumn of 1935. Subsequently, he was accepted into the class of Heinrich Neuhaus as a postgraduate student at the Moscow Conservatory, and Gilels renewed his commitment to giving concerts. The phenomenon, ‘Gilels’, found its recognition from the outside. Upon arriving to Moscow at the start of 1936, the conductor Otto Klemperer performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor Opus 37 with none other than Gilels as the soloist. In 1936 he participated in his first international competition - the International Vienna Music Academy Competition. Despite attracting the attention of Europe and the unquestionable prestige of being a finalist, he looked upon the second place awarded to him as a failure. First place was awarded to his friend Jacob Flier - an intensely Romantic pianist.

In 1938 Gilels and Flier set off to the Queen Elisabeth Competition. They were expected to uphold the victories of the Soviet violinists, lead by David Oistrakh a year earlier, and to return in triumph. Gilels was awarded the first prize and Flier took the third. The whole musical world began to talk about Emil Gilels. Following the competition he was meant to embark on a lengthy concert tour, including a tour of the USA. These plans were abruptly interrupted by the Second World War. On home soil Gilels became a hero: he received a medal for his achievements, was greeted by a welcome party upon his return and in the Soviet consciousness his name sounded in equal rank with the names of famous explorers, pilots and film stars.

Emil Gilels completed his postgraduate studies in 1938 and began teaching at the Moscow Conservatory (from 1952 becoming a professor). His pedagogical work continued sporadically until 1976, but because of the huge demands of his concerts he could not devote much time to teaching. Nevertheless his class numbered important pianists such as Marina Mdivani, Valery Afanassiev, Igor Zhukov and the pianist-composer Vladimir Blok.

When the war broke out he was not evacuated with the conservatory. Instead he joined the civilian resistance and following an order for his return, he began to perform on the Front and in hospitals. At the start of 1943 he performed Stravinsky’s bravura piece Petrushka to the weary inhabitants of besieged Leningrad.

When the war ended Emil Gilels was to undertake a special mission. He was to represent the Art of a victorious country. He took to the stage amongst the ruins of Eastern Europe, and soon after the war he went on concert tours of Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Scandinavia and numerous other countries. Every European country considered it a great privilege to invite Gilels to perform or record. He was decorated with medals and honours - the public worshiped him.

In 1955 Emil Gilels became the first Soviet Artist, since the Second World War, to travel on a concert tour of the USA. The years between the 1950s and 1970s saw him at the height of his powers in all aspects of his playing. He performed under the baton of many of the finest conductors: Mravinsky, Melik-Pashayev, Svetlanov, Ivanov, Rakhlin, Gauk, Ginsburg, Eliasberg, Niyazi, Jarvi, Kitayenko, Dudarova, Barshai. Gilels’ collaboration with Sanderling and Kondrashin were particularly important and longstanding. Within the USSR he had further collaborations with Gusman, Paverman, Maluntsyan, Gokieli, Kolomiytseva, Shaposhnikov, Gurtovoy, Rabinovich, Katz, Feldman, Vigners, Sherman, Stasevich, Sokolov, Tiulin, Kravchenko, Karapetyan, Dubrovsky, Tolba, Provatorov, Katayev, Aranovich, Chunikhin, Yadikh, Nikolayevsky and many others. Through his collaborations he also was able to find new, talented conductors such as Verbintsky and Ovchinikov.

Emil Gilels also played in ensembles: with pianists Flier and Zak, and later with his daughter Elena Gilels; violinists Elisabeth Gilels (his sister), Tziganov, Kogan; with the Beethoven Quartet; in a trio with Tziganov and Shirinsky, as well as his own trio (Gilels, Kogan, Rostropovich); with flautist Korneiv; and the French horn player Shapiro. Abroad he collaborated with the Amadeus Quartet and the Sibelius Academy Quartet.

Emil Gilels’ commitment to the recording studio was as intensive as his commitment to his concert tours : he recorded with many record companies, including Melodiya, Angel, Ariola, EMI, Eterna and Deutsche Grammophon. His earliest recordings are from the 1930s and include Loeillet-Godowsky’s Gigue, the Fantasia on Two Themes from The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart-Liszt-Busoni, Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor Opus 23, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 9, Schumann’s Toccata and Mendelssohn’s Duetto from the Songs without Words. All in all Gilels committed to record over five hundred works (not counting the multiple versions that exist for many of the cycles and individual pieces): the exact number however may never become known because of the numerous amateur audio and video recordings made from Gilels’ recitals.

Between the 1950s and 1970s Gilels continued to teach at the Moscow Conservatory whilst maintaining an active profile as an important public figure. He could not however refuse the invitation to preside over the jury at the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition - a position that he maintained for the first four competitions.

In the middle of the 1970s Emil Gilels started to limit any activities that were not directly related to his performing. He retired as a jury member of international piano competitions and stopped teaching.

Emil Gilels had to his name the Peoples’ Artist of the USSR, was a recipient of the Lenin Prize (1962), and in 1976 in honour of his sixtieth birthday was bestowed the highest possible governmental award - Hero of Socialist Labour.

Nikita Magaloff was one of the more interesting and charismatic keyboard figures of the twentieth century. Many of his recordings are still available and in modern sound; yet here was a man who was a friend of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, from whom he took composition lessons, and Ravel, who was an enthusiastic admirer. He concertized with the most important conductors and orchestras of the day and at the most prestigious festivals. He also collaborated with the leading string players, like violinist Joseph Szigeti. Though he was born in Russia, he was cosmopolitan in outlook, with a broad repertory that favored Chopin: he played many all-Chopin concerts and had the distinction of being the first pianist to record all of Chopin's piano music. But his repertory also included Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Scriabin, and numerous others. Many of his recordings are available on Philips and Decca.

Nikita Magaloff was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1912. His family fled the Revolution when he was six, traveling first to Finland, then to the United States, and finally settling in Paris in 1922. His first advanced studies were at the Paris Conservatory, where his chief teacher was Isidor Philipp.

It was in the 1920s in Paris that Nikita Magaloff met Prokofiev, Ravel, and Rachmaninov, composers whose music and influence figured prominently in his career. He also befriended Szigeti there, a man he credited with introducing him to a broad range of chamber music and whose daughter he would later marry.

While from the 1920s through the 1950s Nikita Magaloff was active in the concert hall and recording studio, his career seemed to take wing after 1960. This lift might have been due to the cessation of his teaching activities: from 1949 to 1959 he regularly held master classes at the Geneva Conservatory. But then perhaps part of his late success owed something to the change in his style: he took more chances, displayed greater passion, and played, arguably, with more spirit.

Most of Nikita Magaloff's available recordings were made after 1960. He remained busy throughout the last three decades of his career, hardly slowing down even near the end: in the 1990-1991 season, he gave a six-concert series that covered nearly the complete Chopin output.

Viktor Merjanov is professor of piano and director of the department at the Moscow Conservatory. He was educated at the same institution, studying there with professor Feinberg. A laureate of many national and international competitions, including the Chopin Competition in 1940, he has had several pupils who have in turn themselves become competition prize-winners.
His career as soloist, teacher and lecturer, has led Viktor Merjanov all over the (then) Soviet Union, to many European capitals, to Cuba and the United States. He has played under the baton of many celebrated conductors, such as Kondrashin, Temirkanov, Maderna and Berglund.
He is also the author of articles on a variety of musical and pedagogical themes. Viktor Merjanov is president of the Association of Soviet Pianists and has often been a jury member at international competitions.

Vlado Perlemuter was the third of four brothers whose father was a rabbi. Although born of Polish Jewish parents in Lithuania, at the age of four he was taken to Paris where he lived for the rest of his life and is therefore thought of as a French pianist. He began to learn the piano at the age of nine and two years later received piano lessons from Moritz Moszkowski which continued for the next two years. At thirteen he joined the piano class of Alfred Cortot at the Paris Conservatoire and when he was fifteen received a premier prix in piano. At the examination he played Fauré’s Theme and Variations Op. 73; the composer was chairman of the jury at the examination. The following year, when he was sixteen, he won a prix d’honneur for his performance of the Variations, Interlude and Finale on a theme of Rameau by Paul Dukas. His success continued when he won the Diémer Prize for which only those students who had already won a premier prix could compete. In 1921 he began to give concerts, subsequently occasionally meeting Gabriel Fauré, for whom he played.

A few years later Vlado Perlemuter heard Ravel’s Jeux d’eau and the impression this work made upon him led him to study and learn the complete works of Ravel between 1925 and 1927. For six months during 1927 Perlemuter had the rare opportunity of studying Ravel’s works with the composer himself, travelling regularly to the composer’s home in Montfort-l’Amaury. At this time he also studied with Robert Lortat. Two years later Perlemuter performed the complete solo piano works by Ravel in two recitals in Paris, the first pianist to do this. In 1953 he published details of his work with Ravel in a book entitled Ravel d’après Ravel (Lausanne 1953). He also gave chamber music recitals with Gabriel Bouillon, Pierre Fournier and the Calvet Quartet.

During the 1930s Vlado Perlemuter strove to establish a career as a pianist. In 1934 he played a few pieces by Prokofiev for The Music Society in London, and made his Wigmore Hall recital debut in 1937. It seems that rather than playing the music of Ravel for which he was so suited, he chose a stolid programme which included Bach’s Italian Concerto BWV 971 and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in F minor Op. 57 ‘Appassionata’. Two years later he returned to the Wigmore Hall, this time choosing repertoire in which he was acknowledged as an interpreter: Ravel’s Sonatine, Schumann’s Études Symphoniques Op. 13, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E flat Op. 81a ‘Les Adieux’ and Chopin’s Préludes Op. 28.

In 1938, as World War II approached, Vlado Perlemuter was appointed as an assistant professor at the Paris Conservatoire; but by 1942 he was desperately trying to get himself and his wife to Switzerland as his name was on a list of French Jews to be arrested. Cortot, although Commissioner of High Arts in the Vichy government, did nothing to help him, something which Perlemuter never forgave. He was not permitted to perform in Switzerland, so the war years were a difficult time for Vlado Perlemuter, who had a breakdown requiring him to spend three years in a sanatorium. He returned to Paris in the late 1940s, in 1950 resuming his performing career and taking up a teaching post at the Paris Conservatoire: his most famous pupils are Michel Dalberto and Christian Zacharias.

Teaching was an important part of his career. He gave master classes in Japan, Britain and Canada and served on the juries of many piano competitions, but he also performed regularly in Europe, North Africa and Japan. He often visited Britain, but when he played at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1962 The Times’s critic referred to the concert erroneously as his London recital debut. Although Perlemuter rarely visited America, he was Pianist in Residence at Indiana University in Bloomington, Illinois; however he apparently returned to Europe before the end of his contract. He was made an Officier de la Légion d’honneur and a Commmandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Vesseline Stoyanov (1902-1969), son of Anastas Stoyanov and brother of Andrey Stoyanov, belongs to the second generation of Bulgarian composers. He was among the founders of the Contemporary Music Society in 1933 (which later became the Union of Bulgarian Composers). He graduated from the State Academy of Music in 1926 majoring in Piano under his brother. The same year he enrolled at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik studying Piano with Professor V. Ebenstein and Composition with Professor F. Schmidt. He took private classes of Piano with P. de Kohn and Orchestration with Wunderer. Upon his return to Bulgaria he taught Piano and Theory of Music (1931-37) and performed as a pianist and conductor. In 1937 he joined the staff of the State Academy of Music teaching music theory subjects. In 1945 he was appointed Professor of Composition and Music Forms. Eventually, he was elected Dean of the Music Theory Faculty (1952) and Rector of the State Academy of Music (1956-1962). He also served as director of the Sofia Opera (1953-54). He wrote and published articles on music aesthetics, music forms and contemporary Bulgarian music.

Initiated to the piano at a very early age by her mother, Esilia Cavallo, Maria Tipo won first prize of the Geneve International Competition when 17 years old. This success led the way to many of the world's great concert halls. She has played with renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the NBC in New York, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the London Symphony. Maria Tipo has recorded for Ricordi and EMI. Her interpretation of the Goldberg Variations and the Scarlatti sonatas won her the Diapason d'Or. Her interests also extend to chamber music, playing with - among others - the Amadeus Quartet, Salvatore Accardo and Uto Ughi. In addition to her concert career, Maria Tipo also devotes herself to teaching. She has been honoured by the Accademico di S. Cecilia and has also been conferred as Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.