Shelly Art - Nicola Eimer, piano

AUDIO

BIOGRAPHY

Winner of the 2005 Royal Overseas League Piano Competition, the British pianist Nicola Eimer is recognised today as one of the most sought-after pianists of her generation. She has given concerto performances at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the Purcell Room and the Barbican, as well as at the Wigmore Hall, in a performance of Shostakovich’s first piano concerto, with the Royal Academy Soloist’s Ensemble led by Clio Gould. She has also performed with orchestras such as the City of London Sinfonia, English Sinfonia, European Union Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Swan.

Nicola has given solo recitals at Fairfield Hall, for the Chopin Society, and at the festivals of Harrogate, Hampstead and Highgate, Buxton, Honiton, Presteigne and Stratford-Upon-Avon, where she gave the premiere of ‘Limehouse Nocturne’, a work written for her by the composer Judith Bingham. She made her Cheltenham Festival Debut in July 2006, where her programme included the premiere of a work by the composer Charlotte Bray. Other projects involving contemporary works include the recent recording of Cecilia McDowall’s ‘Dance the Dark Streets’ for piano and string orchestra, under the baton of George Vass, which was issued on the Dutton-Epoch label, receiving critical acclaim.

A passionate chamber-musician, Nicola is a founder member of the Eimer Piano Trio, formed in 1997. In 2002 they won the chamber music award of the Royal Over-seas League Competition, as well as the Barenreiter Prize in the ARD Competition in Munich. Nicola also performs with other musicians and ensembles, including Remus Azoitei, Alison Balsom, Thomas Carroll, Maurice Hasson, Guy Johnston, Gemma Rosefield, the Carducci Quartet and the London Concertante. As a chamber musician, she has performed in Europe, America, Australia and Japan, and in May 2004 she was invited to perform in the closing concert of the Saint-Saëns festival at Wigmore Hall, where she shared the stage with Steven Isserlis, Graham Johnson and Anthony Marwood. She has participated in the International Musicians’ Seminar masterclasses at Prussia Cove, as both a student and class pianist, and was also recently been invited to participate in the Open Chamber Music Session.

Nicola was a major prize-winner at the 2003 Dudley International Piano Competition and the John Lill Piano Competition, finalist at the 2003 Young Concert Artists’ Trust auditions, and winner of the Tillett Trust Young Artists Platform Award. In 2004 she was also selected to take part in the Kirckman Concert series.

Nicola began her studies in London with Danielle Salamon, and then at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Elton, where she received a First Class Bachelor’s Degree, as well as graduating with the Dip. RAM, the Academy’s highest award. She received generous support during her studies from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust as well as the Delphine de Martelly Trust. While at the Royal Academy of Music, Nicola held both the Hodgson and the Meaker Fellowships. She received her Master’s degree from the Juilliard School in New York in 2001, where she had a Fulbright Scholarship to study with Joseph Kalichstein. Nicola was recently nominated to become an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.

Future engagements include a series of recitals with trumpeter Alison Balsom, and concerts at Wigmore Hall with the London Concertante and the Carducci Quartet.

REVIEWS

‘The pianist Nicola Eimer is already an outstanding artist’
Strad

‘She has presence, technical mastery and a wide repertoire, that is bound to establish her as a real presence’
Hampstead and Highgate Express

‘With Nicola Eimer, the work received a performance worthy of its many beauties, with a startingly dark and operatic slow movement, and an effervescent finale, with moments of subtle illumination’
Birmingham Post

‘Playing of immense power from pianist Nicola Eimer, which was ever sensitive’
Evening Herald, Plymouth

‘She delivered a superb reading, revealing genuine Beethoven playing of some distinction, such as to make us look forward eagerly to more appearances by this fine artist’
Musical Opinion

‘Her gentle caressing of the piano’s dynamics were a delight to both ear and eye’
Harrogate Advertiser

‘She dispatched the cadenza with flamboyant confidence’
Musical Opinion

‘From the moment Nicola Eimer launched the noble opening arching theme, we knew this was a performance to be reckoned with’
Tunbridge Wells Courier