• Program
• About the Artists
  • Amy Goto
  • Simon Bürki

Program

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About the Artists

Amy Goto

Japanese-American cellist Amy Goto was born in 2004 in South Carolina. She began playing the cello at the age of 3 and made her solo debut with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra at age 9.

Amy’s performances have been featured on NPR’s From the Top (Show 362), Radio Classique, and medici.tv. She has given performances at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Pau Casals International Music Festival of El Vendrell, Kronberg Academy, Schloss Elmau, Music@Menlo, Domaine Forget, Musica Mundi, Festival de Musique de Wissembourg, Festival International de Violoncelle de Beauvais, as well as at TEDx University of Rhode Island.

In 2020, Amy was selected as the youngest member of the Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle de Gautier Capuçon at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. In 2022, she was the recipient of the AENA Special Prize (Second Prize) at the Pablo Casals International Award and attended the Verbier Festival Academy as a soloist.

Amy is currently pursuing her master’s degree at the Paris Conservatoire* with Emmanuelle Bertrand. She studies historical performance and baroque cello with Christophe Coin and has also studied with Philippe Muller. Amy plays on a 1750 cello made by Ferdinando Alberti in Milan, on generous loan from Christophe Landon. She is proudly endorsed by Thomastik-Infeld Vienna.

*Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris

Simon Bürki

Pianist Simon Bürki was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and was encouraged to make music by his grandmother, who served as the catalyst for the thirst for knowledge that sustained his continued musical development.

He began piano lessons at the age of five at the Classic and Jazz Music School in Kiev with Rada Zagorskaya, where he studied parallel to his education in a state school in Switzerland. After some years of studies, his progress was accelerated by regular masterclasses with Boris Fedorov, a professor at the National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kiev. In 2011, Simon’s gifts were recognized at the Horowitz International Competition for Young Pianists, where he successfully achieved three laureate prizes in all three age categories. By the age of 12, he was invited to perform the 20th Mozart Concerto in D minor, with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra at the Tonhalle Zürich in Switzerland.

In 2013, his career got a real kick-start as he became a laureate of the music competition for young pianists in Kiev under the patronage of Denis Matsuev and was invited to perform at the Annecy Classic Festival in France. 2015 Simon entered the Central Music School in Moscow and where he studied in the class of Farida Nurizade.

In 2017 Simon entered the new stage in his career, when he won the first place in several competitions in a row, including the 5th International Franz Liszt Competition for Young Pianists in Weimar (Germany), A Step Towards Mastery in St.Petersburg (Russia), as well as the second place in the 1st Ricard Viñes International Piano Youth Competition in Lleida (Spain) and the 3rd place in the 1st International Piano Competition Kyiv (Ukraine, age category under 32). He also competed as the semi-finalist in several competitions in France and Spain for musicians under 36. He has been invited to perform in Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, France and Austria.

Simon currently studies at the Juilliard School in New York with Sergei Babayan.