Svetlana Karpunkina is a concert pianist and piano professor born in Tajikistan. She began studying music at a young age, first the violin and then the piano. She studied piano performance at several prestigious conservatories in Russia and received advanced degrees. Karpunkina furthered her education in Germany and Switzerland, receiving scholarships. She has had a successful performing career, giving concerts around the world and winning awards. Karpunkina teaches piano as a professor in Greece and gives master classes internationally.

1. Svetlana Karpunkina, concert pianist, piano professor
Biography
Svetlana Karpunkina was born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, into an artistic family: her mother is a
painter and her father sang and played the guitar. Her first formal involvement with music was
at the age of six, when she began studying the violin at the Republic’s special music school for
gifted children. At the age of ten, she changed her instrument to the piano and only two years
later she won the Bach Prize in a nation-wide competition. At thirteen years of age, Svetlana
successfully appeared as a soloist with the symphonic orchestra of Dushanbe, performing the
Mendelssohn G minor Piano Concerto.
At the age of fourteen, Svetlana was admitted at the Music College of Moscow (1986-90),
where she studied with Alexander Sobolev and Galina Egiazarova. Later, she developed her
piano study at the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory with Bertha Marantz and then continued
studies as a soloist, accompanist and chamber musician at the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory
in Moscow with legendary Victor Merzhanov and Alexander Bondouriansky. In 1997, she was
awarded the diploma of Master’s Degree with excellence and distinction. Svetlana then
undertook advanced performance post-graduate studies at the Moscow Conservatoire and the
Basle Music Academy.
In 1998 Svetlana received the DAAD (The German Academic Donation) and Masefield
scholarships, and moved to Germany, where she studied with Professors Volker Banfield,
Wolfgang Manz, and Arbo Valdma at the Music Universities (Musikhochschulen) of Hamburg,
Nuremberg and Cologne. Upon completion of her studies, Svetlana achieved her Doctoral
Performance degree (Konzertexamen).
Subsequently, she received the Géza Anda and Cornelia Gerber Foundation Scholarships and
attended a postgraduate programme at the Music Academy of Basle under the direction of
renowned pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. Starting in October 2005, she received several grants
from the International Artists’ Programme of the Stuttgart Academy Schloss Solitude and
participated as a soloist in various art performances.
Svetlana Karpunkina participated in various Master Classes of Rudolf Buchbinder, Homero
Francesch, Wolfgang Manz, Lev Naumov, Vladimir Krainev, Dmitriy Bashkirov and Arbo
Valdma. She has given several performances in countries like Australia, Croatia, Germany,
Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and the USA and she has received several awards and prizes in
nine international piano competitions across the world. Svetlana has been mentioned by music
articles and press announcements, where she has been described as “an extraordinarily talented
pianist” and “a leading Russian pianist”.
Svetlana has performed as a soloist with German, Swiss and Bulgarian orchestras. Since 2004
she also performed with violinist Marc Komonko under the Management of Andreas Braun
Concert Agency of Cologne. Svetlana has also participated in several Music Festivals such as
the ‘Shwabisher Frueling’ and ‘Potsdamer Schloesser Nacht’ in Germany, ‘Mozart-Woche’ in
Austria, ‘Darco Lucic’, Croatia and ‘Piano Plus’ in Greece and performed at Hamburg Music-
Halle, Meistersinger –Halle of Nuremberg, at Palace Saint –Soussi, Athenaeum –Hall, Xanthi-
Municipal Theater, Bechstein-Center in Cologne, Megaron Mousikis of Athens. She has
performed for Radio & TV including Hamburger Classic, ZDF, ORF, To Trito Programma and
Attica Chanel.
From May 2001 until summer 2004, she taught at the Music School and Music Academy of
Basle. During the years 2003-2005, she was also an Assistant Professor at Arbo Valdma's piano
class at the Music University of Cologne (Musikhochschule).

2. Since summer 2006 she has been living in Greece and has been active there as a concert pianist,
Professor of Piano at the Athenaeum Conservatory of Athens, as well as giving piano master
classes and workshops in Greece, Croatia, Italy and Spain and UK.
In summer 2016 Ms. Karpunkina is did various projects with the London Russian Music School
and Nottingham Conservatory (Master Classes and recitals).She is planning to record her next
CD with EMI Label.