Aurelia Shimkus BACH - BUSONI - LISZT B-A-C-H Ich Ruf Zu Dir

Aurelia Shimkus was born on November 2nd, 1997 in Riga (Latvia) and became a Latvian national sensation at age of 11, after her debut performance in the concert of the 90th anniversary of the independence of Latvia, performing a world-premiere of a Latvian traditional folk-song project alongside with some of the greatest Latvian-born musicians such as Gidon Kremer, Elina Garanca and Andris Nelsons. Aurelia Shimkus began to play the piano at age of 4 and gave her first public per- formance at age of 7. She was just 9 years old when she won the 1st prize of the Latvian National Young Pianists Competition and she won the 1st prize at same competition at the age of 15 again as well as at several other national chamber music competitions. She gave her first recital at age of 11 at the Kaunas International Chamber Music Festival (Lithuania) and, since then, has performed as a soloist with Latvian Na- tional Symphony Orchestra, Kaunas Philharmonic Orchestra and State Academic Choir “Latvija“. She has also performed a solo programme of music by Frederic Chopin at the International Festival “Summertime“ in Jurmala (Latvia) in a marathon-concert alongside with such pianists as Dang Thai Shon, Stanislav Igolinsky and David Gazarov. On April 2013, Aurelia had her debut recital in Herdecke, Germany, organized by the agency “Beckerkonzert”. Aurelia Shimkus has participated in masterclasses of the renown French professor Dominique Merlet and, currently, she continues to study at Emils Darzinš Music School in Riga and her teacher is Sergei Osokin, a highly respected teacher of some of the best Latvian pianists.