Helga KAREN

Helga Karen (1991) is a Finnish pianist specialized in performance of classical contemporary music. She has performed as a soloist and chamber music musician in various contemporary music festivals such as SoundScape, Musica Nova, Ajassa, ISA2015, Stockhausen Courses and Concerts, Impuls Academy, International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt and others. Helga has given many world-premier performances of works for piano solo and chamber music, as well as played as a member of such orchestras as Basel Symphony Orchestra and Basel Sinfonietta. She has been an invited lecturer in Perm Music Academy (Russia) giving lectures on special piano preparation techniques and on K.Stockhausen's piece Kontakte. Helga has participated in various music competitions, and won several prizes and honorary mentions, including 1st prizes in Giovani Musicisti music competition (Italy), Kuopio National Finnish competition (Finland) and Les Rencontres Internationales des Jeunes Pianistes (Belgium). From 2014 Helga is a part of an award-winning piano-percussion duo DuoTied.

Helga has received her Diploma in piano pedagogy from Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, completed her pedagogical studies in Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien and received her Master in Specialized Performance in Contemporary Music Degree from Basel Music Academy in 2016. She has studied under the tutelage of professors Jürg Henneberger, Mike Svoboda, Marcus Weiss, Joonas Pohjonen, Manon-Liu Winter and Ella Untamala. She has taken part in master classes with professors Stanislav Widulin, Boris Berman, Adolf Plá, Stefan Bojsten, Johan Schmidt, Ian Pace, Benjamin Kobler, Florian Müller and Nicholas Hodges.