Gülsin Onay   

Gülsin Onay started her piano education when she was three and gave her first public recital on Turkish Radio when she was only six. With the aid of a special state scholarship she studied with Ahmed Adnan Saygun and Mithat Fenmen, and subsequently at the Paris Conservatoire, from where she graduated at the age of 16, winning the prestigious “Premier Prix du Piano”. Prizes in top international competitions, including the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud (in Paris) and the Ferruccio Busoni (in Bolzano.

Gülsin Onay's subsequent, truly international, career has spanned over 55 countries across all continents, from Venezuela to Japan. Gülsin Onay has given concerts in the major musical centres of the world  such as Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, the Washington DC National Gallery of Art and the New York Miller Theater. She has performed as a guest soloist with such leading orchestras as Dresden Staatskapelle, English Chamber Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic, Munich Radio Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony Orchestras.                              She has performed under Vladimir Ashkenazy, Erich Bergel, Michael Boder, Andrey Boreyko, Jorg Faerber, Emmanuel Krivine, Ingo Metzmacher, Jose Serebrier, Vassily Sinaisky, Stanislaw Wislocki and Lothar Zagrosek.          

Gülsin Onay is acknowledged worldwide as the finest interpreter of the music of A. Adnan Saygun. She had dedicated works to Gülsin Onay are Hubert Stuppner, Denis Dufour, Jean-Louis Petit, Muhiddin Dürrüoğlu-Demiriz and Marc-André Hamelin.                                  

Gülsin Onay has recorded 20 albums that illustrate the breadth of her repertoire as well as her interpretive power. Her 2007 CD featuring live concert recordings of Tchaikovsky’s 1st and Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto, has been acclaimed by critics and virtuosi alike. Her latest release is a DVD of Grieg and Saint-Saëns concertos on the VAI label.

Gülsin Onay was honoured with the award of a State Medal by the Polish nation in recognition of her exceptional Chopin interpretations.