"New York Concert Review" - by Edith Eisler

Amael Piano Trio is a very fine group. The stringplayer's intonation is impeccable, their tone is rich, beautiful and homogeneous and can vary from floating delicacy to vibrant full bodied sonorousness.
A large multi-national audience rewarded the performers with warm approval and prolonged ovations.

The Amael Piano Trio was founded by three very accomplished artists, who, individually, have backgrounds as prominent soloists and chamber musicians

All three artists, the pianist, Tatjana Ognjanović, the violinist, Volodja Balžalorsky and the cellist Damir Hamidullin, have performed internationally as guests of numerous music festivals and cycles, and as soloists with many orchestras.

Individually, as well, they have also created multiple CD,s and have made extensive live and archival radio and TV recordings throughout Europe and in the USA and Asia.

 

The Amael Trio has achieved the status of being among the most sought after chamber groups in Slovenia. In addition to performing known traditional trio literature from various style epochs, the trio is also dedicated to performing contemporary works, and to the promotion, internationally, of Slovenian composers of piano trio literature.

TATJANA OGNJANOVIĆ - concert pianist

Tatjana Ognjanović, one of Slovenia's leading pianists, has performed at International Music Festivals and given highly acclaimed recitals in 16 countries throughout Europe, as well as in Malaysia and Singapore. She has appeared as soloist with many orchestras, interpreting piano concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, and Prokofiev.

She has made many CD, LP, radio and TV recordings, embracing a wide repertory of music from the baroque era to the contemporary. Her growing interest in chamber music has resulted in her collaboration with pianist Bojan Gorisek, and more recently, the increasingly acknowledged Trio Amael.

Tatjana Ognjanovic is a prize winner of national, as well as numerous international piano competitions such as the Cidade do Porto in Portugal (1991), Maria Callas in Athens, Greece (1992), Jose Iturbi in Valencia, Spain (1992), and Premio Jaen, also in Spain (1993).

The daughter of two professional opera singers, she began her music education at the age of four, studying for 14 years with Darinka Bernetic. She continued at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana with Dubravka Tomsic, and furthered her studies with Hans Petermandl at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, and with Viktor Merzanov from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

In addition to her artistic performances, she has been teaching at the Academy of Music of the Ljubljana University since 1993.

Cellist Damir Hamidullin is a virtuoso soloist and an excellent representative of the famous Russian cello school.

He is first solo cellist of the National Opera House in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and a member of the Amael piano trio.

He performs throughout Europe as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician.

He has played as a soloist many times with the Kazan Philharmonic and with other symphonic and chamber orchestras in Russia and in Slovenia. He plays all the famous concertos on his instrument: Haydn, Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky.

He has also been guest artist at various international festivals - Festival Groblje and Festival of Contemporary Music Radenci in Slovenia, Festival of Contemporary Music Kishinjev in Moldavia, Festival of Kazan in Russia, etc.