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The Latvian pianist, Aurelia Shimkus [Aurelija Šimkus], was born into a musical family. Her mother Iveta Šimkus is a published poet and a teacher of literature. Her father Gunārs Šimkus used to be an art-rock musician who was active in the 1960's and 1970's and founded the first rock band named "Katedrāle" in Latvia. Her elder brother, Vestard Shimkus (b 1984), is an accomplished pianist and recording artist. She began to play the piano at age of 4, with 9 years she won the 1st prize of the Latvian National Young Pianists Competition and she won the 1st prize at same competition at the age of 15 again as well as other national music competitions. At the age of 15 she was invited to participate in the KlavierOlymp piano competition in Bad Kissingen where she received the 3rd prize. She continued to study at Emīla Dārziņa mūzikas vidusskola (Emils Darzinš Music School) in Riga with her teacher Sergei Osokin, participation in master-classes of the renown French Professor Dominique Merlet.
Aurelia Shimkus became a Latvian national sensation at age of 11, after her debut performance in the concert of the 90th anniversary of the independence of Latvia. In the same year she gave her first recital at the Kaunas International Chamber Music Festival (Lithuania), since then she has performed as a soloist with Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Kaunas Philharmonic Orchestra and State Academic Choir “Latvija“. At the International Festival “Summertime“ in Jurmala (Latvia) she has performed a solo programme of music by Frédéric Chopin in a marathon-concert alongside with such pianists as Dang Thai Shon, Stanislav Igolinsky and David Gazarov. She gave her debut in Germany with solo recital in Herdecke in April 2013 and was heard with Warsaw Symphony Orchestra on Norderney. In November 2014 she performed her first orchestral concert with W.A. Mozart's KV 456 B-Dur with the English Chamber Orchestra at Konzerthaus Dortmund. After this concert The Mozart-Gesellschaft Dortmund awarded her with its scholarship in 2014, giving her opportunities to perform W.A. Mozart's Concerto KV 491 with Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra at Konzerthaus Dortmund (October 2015), and W.A. Mozart's Concerto KV 414 with Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt and Ruben Gazarian at Stadthalle Bayreuth (December 2015). She made her debut in the prestigious Tonhalle Zürich in the April 2016. She has participated in the Interlaken Classics and Next Generation music festivals in Switzerland, Kissinger Sommer and Meister von Morgen in Germany and others. Since 2017, she studies piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln in Cologne, Germany.
Aurelia Shimkus has released two solo CD's - "Scherzo" (2013) and "Ich ruf’zu Dir" (2016) on the German label ARS Produktion. She is winner of the most important and renowned worldwide music awards - ECHO KLASSIK 2016 gained recognition of the ECHO award’s jury - the most influential and acknowledged German experts- by releasing her second solo album - "B-A-C-H. Ich ruf’ zu Dir" with works of J.S. Bach, Franz Liszt as well as Ferruccio Busoni's piano transcriptions of J.S. Bach's organ works. The CD has been also awarded with 6 out of 6 stars in the categories ‘’interpretation’’ and ‘’repertoire’’ by the prestigious German magazine Piano News and has drawn attention by several other most important German magazines, describing Aurelia’s performance as ‘’an extraordinary debut ’’ (Der Spiegel), ‘’(…) This is the greatest expression of emotional and individual piano playing at such a high level, that we can expect only from older artists.(…) Aurelia Shimkus is a marvelous pianist, despite her youth!’’- (Piano News), ‘’A highly talented pianist, of whom we will surely hear a lot’’ (Pizzicato), ‘’18 year old Aurelia Shimkus amazes with combining impressive boldness and precious tenderness in her musical language.(…) Taking her technically gifted play, her deeply rooted, religious ideas and her extremely wide musical ‘palette’ at face value, we cannot escape the feeling that we are dealing with a young, yet extraordinary talent ‘in progress’’’ (HRAudio.net France). The presentation concert of the CD took place in Berlin (piano salon ‘’Christophori’’) at the beginning of this year. |
