Biography
At only 16 years of age, Alice Burla is quickly becoming internationally-recognized as a serious musician and very talented pianist. Considered a prodigy since the age of 5, Ms. Burla has variously performed two piano concerti within the same evening, at ages 8, 10 and 12.
In 2002, she was the youngest winner of the National Final of the Canadian Music Competitions. At the age of 6, Ms. Burla became one of the youngest students ever accepted to The Juilliard School's Pre-College Division. In 2008, she was the youngest student at the 13th Hamamatsu International Piano Academy in Japan and the finalist of the Academy competition. Later in 2008, after performing an acclaimed solo recital and a number of concerti with orchestra, Yamaha Corporation of America announced the addition of Ms. Burla, as the youngest performer ever, to its classical piano artist roster. In July of 2008, as the youngest pianist, she performed an evening of solo piano music, including the complete Goldberg Variations, at the renowned Newport Music Festival.
Born in Toronto, Canada into a family of musicians, Alice Burla began studying piano when she was 4 with her mother and Larisa Niurenberg. She made her orchestral debut at the age of 5 and played her first solo recital at 6. From 2003 to 2009, she studied with Oxana Yablonskaya at The Juilliard School. Ms. Burla performed in master classes with Dmitri Bashkirov in Berlin, Salzburg International Summer Academy, Tel Hai International Piano Master Classes (Israel) and Paderewski Piano Academy (Poland).
Recently Ms. Burla appeared as a soloist with several orchestras, including the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, New York Sinfonietta, Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra, Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, Riverside Symphony, Rockland Symphony, Hawthorne Symphony, Chamber Orchestra Amadeus (Mexico), Donetsk Philharmonic Orchestra (Ukraine) and Torun Symphony Orchestra (Poland).
In 2007, 2008 and 2011 Alice Burla was featured on PBS telecasts of "Live from Carnegie Hall" and on WQXR as part of “From the Top” national radio broadcast.
Since the age of 10, Alice Burla has successfully concertized internationally. In 2009 she toured across Europe playing solo recitals in Germany (Heidelberg, Munich), Italy (Lucca), France (Paris), and Poland (Bydgoszcz, Poznan).
Ms. Burla has played a wide repertoire, including Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Eroica Variations by Beethoven, 2 Suites for two pianos by Rachmaninoff, 12 Etudes Op.25 by Chopin, transcriptions by Liszt and Rachmaninoff and 15 piano concertos with orchestras in the USA, Mexico, Ukraine and Poland.
Ms. Burla has performed in such venues as Salle Cortot (Paris), the Wiener Saal at the Mozarteum (Salzburg), Aula Nova (Poznan), Academy of Music (Bydgoszcz) and Torun City Center (Poland), C.Bechstein Centrum (Berlin) and a sold-out solo recital at the Deutsch - American Institute in Heidelberg (Germany), City Center in Lucca (Italy), Prokofiev Philharmonic Hall in Donetsk (Ukraine), Evans Hall in Sde Boker (Israel), San Pedro Auditorium in Monterrey (Mexico), ACT City Concert Hall in Hamamatsu (Japan), Glenn Gould Studio at CBC Radio (Toronto), Living Arts Centre of Mississauga, Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts (Ontario), Canada, as well as in major concert halls in USA, such as Zankel and Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Paul Hall at the Juilliard School, Steinway Hall, The Yamaha Piano Salon, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC, Newport Music Festival, RI, Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, The Performing Arts Center in Purchase, Rockland Cultural Arts Center, NY, Zoellner Arts Center in Bethlehem, PA, Jordan Hall, Boston and Duxbury Music Festival, MA.
Critic Harris Goldsmith writing for The Concert Review noted, "She hears polyphony impressively well [...] She has a fresh, clean and lively rhythmic sense; a wonderful gift for tonal color [...] her dexterity is already awesome [...]" and pointed out "her exquisite account of Var. 25 of Goldberg's."
The Rhein - Neckar - Zeitung (Germany) wrote that Ms. Burla "has a natural and disarming sense for music." EL NORTE of Mexico exclaimed that Ms. Burla "demonstrated interpretative maturity that completely overwhelmed both the audience and her fellow musicians."
In 2010, Ms. Burla appeared as a piano prodigy in the 20th Century Fox major film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and worked with acclaimed director Oliver Stone and world-renowned actors such as Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, and Susan Sarandon.
-Alice Burla was profiled in:
Newspapers and magazines:
New York Times, Accent Magazine, The Journal News, Forward, Jewish Week, The Juilliard Journal, Westchester Parent, The Rivertowns Enterprise, New Russian Word, La Scene Musicale (France), The Rhein – Neckar – Zeitung (Germany), El Norte (Mexico), Russian Express and New Canadian (Canada).
TV and radio broadcasts:
WQXR, WCBS 880 News, From the Top on PBS, WB11 “News at Ten”, Fox 5 News and Rockland County News.