Christina Bjørkøe   (Born 1970)

Christina Bjørkøe began playing the piano at the age of 5. She was a pupil of Therese Koppel until 1990, then at the age of 19 was admitted to the Juilliard School of Music in New York as a pupil of Seymour Lipkin. Later she concluded her studies with Anne Øland at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, where she made her debut in 1997. At the age of 16 she was already performing as a soloist with an orchestra, and since then she has given concerts as a soloist and chamber musician both in the major series at the Tivoli Concert Hall with music by Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert, and in various parts of Europe, the USA, South America and Asia. Christina Bjørkøe has recorded Carl Nielsen’s piano works, which brought her the DR P2 Prize in 2009. She was also awarded the P2 Prize in 2005 for Best Classical Solo Recording with Knudåge Riisager’s piano works. Christina has won several prizes and grants, among which she can number the Victor Borge Grant, the Gladsaxe Music Prize and the Carl Nielsen Travel Grant. Christina Bjørkøe has been a soloist with most Danish symphony orchestras, including the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and among orchestras abroad has worked with the Czech Chamber Orchestra, the Recife Festival Orchestra in Brazil, the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. In recent years she has given concerts in China, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Italy and South America. Her many recordings include Niels Viggo Bentzon’s piano sonatas and, along with the violinist Johannes Søe Hansen, Vagn Holmboe’s violin sonatas, and with the violinist Arne Balk-Møller violin sonatas by Børresen, Glass and Henriques. She has most recently recorded Poul Rovsing Olsen’s Piano Concerto with the Odense Symphony Orchestra. Christina Bjørkøe works as a lecturer at the Southern Denmark Academy of Music and Theatre School.