Ivan Koska

Pianist IVAN KOSKA studied at the Church Conservatory in the class of Karol Toperczer.  Since 2000, he has been working in Italy where he has improved his performance skills under the guidance of artists such as Lazar Berman, Konstantin Bogino, Bruno Canino, Norma Fisher, François-Joël Thiollier and others. He is the winner of several piano competitions such as the International Piano Competition Premio Seiler in Palermo (2001) and the Rome International Contemporary Music Interpretation Competition Premio di Roma (2006). Since 2009, he has worked in the USA where he received his doctorate in piano performance from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 2015. From 2015 to 2018, he taught piano and theory courses at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. He has given concerts primarily in Italy and the USA, but also in other European countries, Brazil, and Panama. After returning to Slovakia, he has been mostly engaged in chamber music. Koska is a regular partner of leading Slovak performers such as Eva Šušková, Jozef Lupták, Moyzes Quartet, Robert Vizvári and others. However, his activities are not limited to piano performance: his studies in translation at the University of Rome La Sapienza led him to translate mainly musical texts from several languages and he is also the director of the successful concert series Music in Pezinok.

Concert: Eva Šušková and Ivan Koska

The poetry concert is a concept that combines songwriting and poetry. Most vocal concerts face two main artistic problems. On one hand, they often tend to focus too much on the personality of the vocal performer himself – his vocal fund, technique or acting abilities, with the music itself to be sidelined. The intimate relationship between the music and the musicalized word, which is essential for the composer, does not occupy the place it deserves in such concerts. On the other hand, the basic assumption of a symbiosis between music and words is often not perceived. For the full experience of perceiving the poetic-musical symbiosis, the clarity of content is essential, that is through a well-followed original text with a parallel translation in the bulletin.

The poetry concert features two song cycles (Schumann, Ravel) performed by our leading vocal performer Eva Šušková with piano accompaniment by Ivan Koska.