About

Biography

Acclaimed Pianist Helena Buckmayer lives in Scotland where she enjoys her career as a performing artist, piano lecturer and artistic director of various musical projects.

As a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician Helena has performed and toured throughout Europe, Japan, United States and Canada with several concerts being broadcast on television and radio, playing in venues such as Ulmer Kornhaus, Frankfurter Dom, Usher Hall, Queen’s Hall, Kobe Concert Hall, Matsue Concert Hall, Hamamatsu Concert Hall, Greyfriar’s Kirk, Canongate Kirk and Ardkinglas House. She performed with conductors such as Philip Jordan, Roberto Paternoster, Kenneth Kiesler, Robert Dick, Henning Kussel, Tim Paxton and orchestras such as Orchestra of the Canongait, Augsburger Philharmoniker, Wurttembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Sewannee Symphony Orchestra, Peebles Orchestra, New Edinburgh Orchestra and Collegium Musicum and more.

As a young player, she was a prizewinner at various national and international youth competitions including the biggest German competition Jugend Musiziert where she was also awarded a special prize for her accompaniment and the Yamaha Piano Competition. She performed within various music series for young musicians and was fortunate enough to receive numerous accolades, including awards from the German Magazine Hörzu, the Cultural Institute for the Arts in Baden-Württemberg, the City of Ulm, the Johanneson International School of the Arts in Victoria (Canada).

As artistic director she has organised a Schumann festival, a Czech Music Fest and Young Chamber Music (www.youngchambermusic.com) , projects which are aimed to promote less heard music while also giving performance opportunities for young musicians who will benefit by working and performing with professional musicians.

These events have been generously supported by the German Consulate in Edinburgh, Enterprise Music Scotland, Gideon Klein Foundation in Prague and others.

In the last decade, she has been primarily focusing on nurturing young talent within a specialised environment and within various institutions and music courses training young pianists from all around the world.

She has taught students at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow (www.rcs.ac.uk) , St. Andrew’s University, Cambridge University, St Mary’s Music School (www.stmarymusicschool.co.uk), University of Washington, USA. She has consulted and shared her pedagic insights within various other schools and institutions including the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, London (www.abrsm.org) and the World Piano Teacher Association (www.wpta.info).

Many of her pupils have moved on to study at top conservatoires including Conservatoire Amsterdam and Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden, Royal College of Music etc. Many have been prizewinners at national and international competitions including Piano Competition in Seville, London Online Piano Competition, Loretto Piano Competition, Luigi Cerritelli, Paderewski Instrumental.

Helena has been privileged to have been appointed the Presidency and Artistic Directorship of the World Piano Teacher Association, WPTA UK-Scotland (www.wpta.info). This enables her to develop her commitment of connecting with similar minded pianists all over the world to share her own pedagogic and artistic ideas and projects.

Helena’s main focus in her piano teaching is to eradicate unwanted tension by developing an awareness from an early age, to enable every pupil to play in an effortless, pain-free way by combining clearly thought-out physical movements with musical expressions and hence allowing uncompromised artistic involvement.

Her research and work in this specialised area led her to many outstanding pedagogues including Edna Golandsky (www.ednagolandsky.com) in New York.

You can read here about Helena’s personal experience from studying the Taubman approach with Edna.

You can read here from Helena’s students

Throughout her life, Helena has been privileged to have been taught by some of the finest teachers who shaped her musical thinking and playing profoundly such as Béla Síki (Seattle) who was Dinu Lipatti's assistant, Fernande Kaeser (Stuttgart) who was also a Lipatti pupil and a protégé by Clara Haskil, Bernard Roberts (RCM, London) and György Sebök (Bloomington, USA). Further influenced and worked with Yonty Solomon, Leonard Hokanson, Wan Ing Ong, Maria Sofianska, Michael Gurt, Samuel Sanders, Gary Hammond, Eudice Shapiro and more