Pianist and composer Bruno Vlahek is widely regarded as one of the most prominent and versatile musicians of his generation. Critics have praised his performances for their “fantastic virtuosity” and a “bewitching depth of musical thought.”
Born in 1986 in Zagreb (Croatia), he began his piano studies at the age of nine. Just two years later, he won First Prize at the Pinerolo International Piano Competition in Italy and subsequently became a two-time absolute winner of Croatia’s national competitions in Dubrovnik. He graduated as one of the youngest students in the history of the Zagreb Music Academy, studying with Vladimir Krpan, continued his education at the Haute École de Musique in Lausanne with Jean-François Antonioli, and earned his master’s degree at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Vassily Lobanov, where he also studied composition and improvisation. From 2010 to 2013, he studied with the legendary pianist and pedagogue Dmitri Bashkirov at the Queen Sofía College of Music in Madrid. Further artistic influence came from encounters with musicians such as Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Menahem Pressler, Ferenc Rados, Masaaki Suzuki, and Gábor Takács-Nagy.
Bruno Vlahek is the recipient of top prizes at numerous international piano competitions, including those in Paris, Shanghai, and Lyon. In Croatia, he was named Young Musician of the Year by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also received the Paderewski Prize (Switzerland), the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe Award, the Pnina Salzman Memorial Award (Israel), and the Artists on Globe Award. As a composer, he won First Prize at the Cristóbal Halffter International Composition Competition in Spain and received Croatia’s Porin Award and the Stjepan Šulek Award for Best Composition of the Year (2019). In 2021, he became laureate and winner of three special prizes at the “New Classics – Organ Taurida” Competition held in the Great Hall of the P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. For his artistic achievements, he was awarded an Honorary Diploma presented by Her Majesty Queen Sofía of Spain.
He performs regularly as a recitalist and soloist with orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Russia, and the Middle East, appearing in major venues such as the Palau de la Música Catalana (Barcelona), Auditorio Nacional de Música (Madrid), Franz Liszt Academy (Budapest), Mozarteum Salzburg, Dubai Opera, St Martin-in-the-Fields (London), Moscow Kremlin, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Shanghai Concert Hall, and Seoul Arts Centre, as well as at festivals in Dubrovnik, Bolzano, Moscow, Vienna, Palma de Mallorca, Dar-es-Salaam, and Verbier. He has toured China extensively and is a regular guest at many of the country’s leading concert halls.
His performances have been broadcast by France Musique, BBC Radio 3, Dutch NPO Radio 4, Spanish RTVE and Catalunya Ràdio, ABC Radio Australia, FM CUltura Brasil and Radio Suisse Romande, for which he recorded Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. In 2020, he released three critically acclaimed solo recordings: Touches (works by Bernstein, Ligeti, and Stravinsky), Rachmaninov’s complete Études-Tableaux, and a selection of Scarlatti’s Keyboard Sonatas (Naxos). He has collaborated with conductors and chamber music partners including Leopold Hager, Milan Horvat, Jaime Martín, Pascal Rophé, David Danzmayr, Diemut Poppen, Philippe Muller, Goran Končar, David Grigorian, Alexander Ghindin, Cyprien Katsaris, and Viktor Tretyakov. Together with his wife, pianist Dubravka Vukalović, he performs as the D&B Piano Duo, prizewinners of the International Piano Duo Competition in Monte-Carlo (2013) and London (2022).
In addition to his pianistic career, Bruno Vlahek is active as a concert organist and composer of orchestral, chamber, solo, and choral works, performed on five continents in cities including New York, Chicago, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cambridge, Lisbon, Prague, Salzburg, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Seoul, and Singapore, as well as at the ISCM World New Music Days in Sydney. His compositions have been published in Croatia, the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States, and have received awards from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. He is currently Professor at the Katarina Gurska Music Conservatory in Madrid, serves on juries of international competitions, and gives masterclasses worldwide.