Biography
Jan Schulmeister (*2006) has been playing the piano since the age of five. He began his artistic journey at the Elementary Art School in Kroměříž under the guidance of Eva Zonová. Since 2021, he has continued his studies at the P. J. Vejvanovský Conservatory in Kroměříž in the class of Martina Schulmeisterová and is currently a student at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno in the class of Prof. Alena Vlasáková and Prof. Jan Jiraský.
In addition, he gains experience at master interpretation courses led by prominent Czech and international teachers, especially through his collaboration with Prof. Ewa Kupiec (Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien, Hannover, Germany).
Since the age of seven, he has been taking part in national and international piano competitions, achieving remarkable results — so far, he has won first prizes or absolute victories at more than forty prestigious competitions across Europe and the USA. Among the most significant are, for example, the César Franck Piano Competition (2019, Belgium), Piano Talents (2014, 2017, Italy), North International Music Competition (2021, Sweden), Manhattan International Competition (2022, USA), Virtuosi per musica di pianoforte (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021), Amadeus (2016, 2017), Broumovská klávesa (2019), Beethovenovy Teplice (2019), and other competitions in Estonia, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Luxembourg, Italy, and North Macedonia. At many of these competitions, he has also received numerous special prizes for exceptional interpretative performances.
Jan is also a two-time finalist in the solo category of the International Radio Competition Concertino Praga. In 2020, he received an Honourable Mention (First Class) together with the First Prize of the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY). A year later, in 2021, he demonstrated his artistic growth by winning the Second Prize, the Audience Award, and the Prize for the Best Czech Participant. He became a finalist in this competition again in 2023, this time in the chamber music category, where, together with violinist Daniel Matejča, they completely dominated the category and not only won the First Prize, but also received the Audience Award, the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation Prize for the best interpretation of the composer's work, and the Viktor Kalabis and Zuzana Růžičková Foundation Prize for the best interpretation of a work from the 20th or 21st century.
His greatest achievement so far is the Third Prize at one of the world's most prestigious piano competitions, the Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition, which took place in June 2023 in Dallas, USA.
Thanks to his competition successes, he has had the opportunity to collaborate with significant orchestras and conductors. As the absolute winner of the Amadeus International Competition, he performed with the Brno Philharmonic under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies. With the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra in Zlín, he performed under the direction of Tomáš Netopil as part of the "Little Big Philharmonics" project. He appeared with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOČR) under Jiří Rožeň and Vahan Mardirossian during the final concerts of the Concertino Praga competition in 2020 and 2021 at the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum. He has also collaborated with the North Bohemian Philharmonic Teplice (Petr Vronský, 2021), the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava (2023), the Prague Chamber Orchestra (2020), and the Barocco sempre giovane Chamber Orchestra (2020).
In the field of chamber music, he regularly performs with violinist Daniel Matejča and the Wihan Quartet. In 2018, he performed with this ensemble in the concert series "Má vlast", organized by Václav Hudeček and broadcast by TV Noe. In the same year, he became a member of the PETROF Art Family. He is a scholarship holder of the Komárek Family Foundation and, during the 2018/2019 season, he also took part in the MenArt scholarship programme organized by the Magdalena Kožená Endowment Fund.
As a soloist, he performs not only on Czech stages but also internationally, including in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Spain, and North Macedonia. He is regularly invited to perform at major music festivals, among them Dvořákova Praha, Prague Spring, Smetana's Litomyšl, Svátky hudby, the Chopin Festival Mariánské Lázně, and the Music in the Gardens and Chateau Kroměříž Festival.
Jan's artistic journey so far is documented on six albums released by PETROF and ArcoDiva. Most recently, he has started a collaboration with SUPRAPHON, under which his two debut albums have just been released.