About Mishka Rushdie Momen

Mishka Rushdie Momen, (born in London in 1992) Described by the 2010 Cambridge Summer Music Festival as “An extraordinarily gifted young artist and a recitalist of distinction- audiences have been both enchanted by her performance and that such a young player should bring such maturity and depth to her interpretations”. She is the youngest pupil ever to have been admitted by the Purcell School at the age of six on a full scholarship where she was a pupil of Ilana Davids. Mishka is now a final year scholarship student at the Guildhall School of Music and has been studying externally with Imogen Cooper as her only student since 2006. She is also supported by the Hope Hambourg Musical Trust.

In July this year Mishka won First Prize of the Piano section in the prestigious Tunbridge Wells International Young Concert Artists 2010 Competition. Previously at the age of 13 Mishka was unanimously selected by the jury as the First Prize winner of the Leschetizky Association’s Gifted Young Pianists Concerto Competition held in New York. Last year Mishka represented the UK at the first EU Piano competition in Prague in June 2009 and was awarded the Director’s Special prize for her rendition of Chopin.

Her debut solo recital was at the age of ten following which her concert experience includes most of London’s major venues including the Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, Barbican Centre, Britten Theatre, St. James’s Church Piccadilly, St. Martin in the Fields, Steinway Hall, Regents Hall, Spencer House and Leighton House. She has also played recitals at the Proms at St Jude’s in London, Winchester Festival, Congress Theatre Eastbourne, Holywell Music Room in Oxford, Clivedon, St Olave’s in the City of London and St. Mary’s Church Perivale. She is regularly invited to give recitals hosted by the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe and the Chopin Society UK. In 2010 Mishka performed in both the Chopin and Schumann Festivals in London and was invited to give a solo recital in the excellent Cambridge Summer Music Festival in July.

Mishka has also performed abroad at the Liszt Salon in Altenburg, Germany, Merkin Hall, New York where she played Beethoven 3rd piano concerto as soloist with the Camerata New York, at the Nostitz Palace in Prague and in April 2010 gave a major solo recital at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai.

Mshka has performed chamber music in Wigmore Hall, The Spirit of Youth in Music Festival, Rochdale, in a piano Quintet at Chamber Music Concerts in Yehudi Menuhin Hall, Surrey and St Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico in 2009 and plays regularly with singers at the Guildhall.

Mishka has participated in masterclasses since 2002 and over the years has played for Melvyn Tan, Gary Graffman, Maria Curcio, Piers Lane, Alexander Satz, Christopher Elton, Neil Immelman, Christian Blackshaw, James Gibb and Marios Papadopoulis. In April 2006 Mishka was accepted at the Klavier Academy in Weimar, for pianists under 35 years old at the Liszthaus which was opened to host masterclasses for the first time since those given by Liszt himself. Following this she was invited back to Weimar on a full scholarship to the Hochschule fur musik Franz Liszt.

In 2008 Mishka played in the Paul Lewis and Leslie Howard masterclasses at the Guildhall and in April 2009 she was selected to play in a show case masterclass to Lang Lang at LSO St Luke’s which was the opening event of his residency with the LSO and has been filmed for broadcast. She has also has periodic private lessons with Alfred Brendel.

In February this year Mishka appeared on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show and performed Chopin B minor Sonata as part of the Chopin Society’s promotion of his Bicentennial celebration concerts.

Forthcoming concerts include a recital in Cologne at the Polish Embassy in their Chopin 200th Anniversary series in October 2010, and a sponsored recital at St Martin’s in the Field as part of her prize from the Tunbridge Wells competition. Mishka has been invited to play in Imogen Cooper’s Wigmore Hall masterclass on works by Schumann on the 9th November 2010.