Barbara Szczepanska (Poland)

Barbara Szczepanska was born in Warsaw and graduated from the Chopin Academy in Warsaw. This was followed by postgraduate piano studies with Victor Mierzhanov, Tschaikovsky Conservatory Moscow. The oeuvre of Fryderyk Chopin and the piano sonatas of Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven belong to the core repertory of Barbara Szczepanska. Concert tours led the pianist through Poland, Hungary, the former Soviet Union, Spain, Italy and Germany. She has played with renowned orchestras but also made her reputation as a soloist and a chamber musician.

After educational activities at the Academies of Warsaw and of Münster, she became Professor of the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf (University) in 1989. From 1998  to 2008, she was vice-rector of the Hochschule. She was head of the training centre for highly talented children of the Robert Schumann Hochschule ‘Schumann Junior’. In addition, she was Visiting Professor in England, Poland, South Korea and China. Since 2017, Barbara Szczepanska has a teaching assignment at the Kalaidos Music University in Zürich, Switzerland.

Barbara Szczepanska is Artistic Director of the Robert Schumann Competition for Young Pianists in Düsseldorf, which has taken place every two years since 2017, last time in February 2025. First prizes of renowned piano competitions, gained by her students, document the pedagogical success of Barbara Szczepanska. Her students have won important competitions including the ARD Competition Munich, the Queen Elisabeth Competition Brussels, the International Competition Leeds, the International Piano Competitions Johannes-Sebastian Bach Leipzig, the Piano Competiton for Young Pianists Ettlingen and the International Piano Competition Franz Liszt Weimar.

Barbara Szczepanska has acted as a jury member in many international competitions including Liszt Competition Weimar, Dvarionas Competition Vilnius, Young Pianists Competition Ettlingen, and Beethoven Competition Bonn.