Biography
From an early age, pianist Nina Gurol developed a deep affinity for contemporary music. “I’m drawn to complexity — to exploring layers of meaning — and I like to venture into spaces that at first seem opaque, perhaps even unsettling,” is how she describes her artistic approach. Trained by Prof. Gesa Lücker at the University of Music and Dance Cologne and shaped by influential encounters with Tamara Stefanovich, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Maria João Pires, her playing unites intellectual precision with a refined pianistic sensitivity.The press has praised her “utterly enchanting, soft, almost melting touch — completely in the grand tradition of Claudio Arrau” (WZ). In her long-standing collaboration with composer York Höller (a student of Pierre Boulez and B. A. Zimmermann), she has premiered numerous works and continues to curate her programs with a thoughtful interplay between classical and contemporary repertoire. Solo and chamber music engagements have taken her to prestigious venues such as the Kölner Philharmonie, the Mariinsky Theatre St. Petersburg, and the Guotai Arts Center Chongqing, as well as to festivals including Beethovenfest Bonn, the Ruhr Piano Festival, and the ACHT BRÜCKEN Festival for Contemporary Music. She received the International HUGO Award 2022 for innovative concert formats and was a finalist for the Berlin Prize for Young Artists. Live recordings of her performances have been broadcast by WDR, Bavarian Broadcast, and Deutschlandfunk. In autumn 2025, she will release her first joint album with cellist Valerie Fritz on NEOS Music, featuring works by Rebecca Clarke and Claude Debussy, alongside two world-premiere recordings of York Höller’s solo and duo compositions. Höller’s piano work Signe ascendant is dedicated to her. Beyond her passion for contemporary music, Nina Gurol is deeply engaged with the intersections of music, death, and mourning, curating numerous solo and chamber projects around these themes in recent years. As an artist of the TONALiSTEN collective, she regularly collaborates with young people to explore how music connects with the social and existential questions of life.
