Ohrid, 13 August 2024 (MIA) — This year's participants of the Ohrid Summer International Music Master Classes for Violin, Viola and Chamber Music, run by Macedonian violinist Emilio Percan, will give their final concert at St. Sophia church at 5 pm.

Seminar participants include young violinists from Russia, Germany, Austria, Croatia, Greece, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. They will be accompanied on stage by Azerbaijani-German pianist Tamilla Guliyeva.

Founded in 2009, the International Music Master Classes for Violin, Viola and Chamber Music was originally held in Istria, Croatia. With the support of the Ministry of Culture and the City of Ohrid, the seminar has been held in Ohrid since 2014.

More than 150 international music students, teachers, performers, and professional musicians have participated in the seminar since it was founded.

Emilio Percan has been performing as soloist and concertmaster with various European orchestras since 2006, throughout Europe and in South America, Japan, China, Israel, and the USA.

He has recorded over 20 CDs for Deutsche Grammophon, DECCA, SONY, Harmonia Mundi, Capriccio, Pan Classics, and Onyx Classics. 

Percan started violin lessons at the age of seven in Skopje, and gave his debut recital at the age of 14. He studied with Isabela Gotovina in Moscow in 1999 and Dora Ivanova in Sofia in 2000 before arriving at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen in 2001.

Percan was appointed guest professor for violin and chamber music at the Moscow State University for Art and Culture in 2012.

He has been teaching the violin at the University of Music and the Performing Arts Graz since March 2015, and was appointed at the “Kalaidos” music academy in Zurich in 2020.

He is also the artistic director of the International Music Masterclasses Summer School in collaboration with Jeunesses Musicales since 2013.

He has held seminars on violin, viola, chamber music and lectures on historical performance and methodology in Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine. His students have won more than 150 international awards.

Tamilla Guliyeva began her piano studies at the age of six at the music school for highly gifted children in her home city of Baku, afer which she continued her piano studies at the Baku Academy of Music. In 2004, she moved to Germany and completed further studies at the Folkwang Musikhochschule in Essen.

She has performed numerous recitals in various chamber music formations, including duos with Michael Kugel (viola), Pieter Daniel (violin), Nana Jaschwili (violin), Vesselin Paraschkevov (violin) and others.

She has performed as a soloist with symphony and chamber orchestras such as the Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, l’arte del mondo, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen, Musica Camerata Westfalica, etc. 

She is also active as a member of various chamber music ensembles and regularly gives masterclasses in Germany, Croatia and North Macedonia as part of the Ohrid Summer Music Festival.

She makes recordings for radio, including WDR Cologne, and for CD productions. She teaches at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. mr/