OLENA SHVETSOVA
Director & Piano
Ukrainian pianist Olena Shvetsova enjoys a busy career as soloist, accompanist and teacher. She started her piano lessons with Nataliia Romenskaya, then with Olga Orlova at the Music College of Kiev, where she won many solo piano prizes, subsequently being awarded a scholarship from the President of the Ukraine for further studies at the prestigious National Music Academy of Kiev with Olga Liforenko and Zoia Eremenko, a pupil of the great Russian pianist Lev Oborin. After graduating with honours, she taught at the Kosenko Music School, and was Official Pianist for the Opera Department of the National Academy of Kiev, collaborating with Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vladimir Sheiko , and stage producer Vladimir Shutko.
Olena has won many prizes at international piano competitions, including First Prize at the Sixth International Chopin Piano Competition in Rome, and Finalist at the Eighth International Rachmaninoff Competition, Italy, and has performed throughout the UK, Italy, Austria, Andorra, Holland, Russia and Ukraine as soloist and accompanist to her cellist husband Richard May.
She continues to teach the rich traditions of the Russian school with her own students at Wells Cathedral Specialist Music School, University of Bristol and Bristol Cathedral Choir School. Many of them achieve outstanding results in their ABRSM Examinations and Diplomas, often winning prizes at national and international level, and gaining places to the UK’s top universities and conservatoires. Olena gives masterclasses in the UK and abroad, and is Director of Encore International Music Summer School.