After studying at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, Sae Lee graduated with honours in piano and chamber music from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with Michel Beroff and Eric Le Sage.

She is the first prize winner of several competitions, including the Città di Padova and Albert Roussel International Festival and chamber music competitions like the Fnapec, Carlo Soliva and Cidade de Alcobaça. She has performed at the renowned Paris Piano à Enghien Festival, at the Nevada-Semipalatinsk International Conference, which is sponsored by the Government of Kazakhstan and UNESCO, and on the Japanese national television programme NHK Classic Club.

As a soloist, she performed with several orchestras worldwide, including the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra, and Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra – she performed with them the Turangalîla’s Symphony by Olivier Messiaen. She collaborates with world-renowned ballet dancers like Aurélie Dupont (the Director of Paris Opera Ballet) and Kevin O’Hare (the Director of The Royale Ballet).

Sae is currently employed at the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana. “Sae Lee is one of the most sought-after collaborative pianists of her generation. Her ability to interact with other musicians with exceptional instrumental and artistic level captivate audiences”. (source: Mainich newspaper)

Vladimir Mlinarić was born on December 23, 1964, in Pula. He studied in Ljubljana with Prof. Zdenka Novak and in Vienna with Prof. Leonid Brumberg. He has received numerous awards at national and international competitions.

As a concert pianist, he has performed in most European countries, as well as in the United States, Canada, Chile, China, and Russia. He has appeared in chamber ensembles with distinguished Slovenian and international artists. As a member of the Trio Luwigana, he is a recipient of the Betetto Award and the Župančič Award.

Since 2002, he has been a professor at the Academy of Music, University of Ljubljana, and since 2021, he has served as Head of the Keyboard Department.

Music critics describe him as a refined interpreter who combines academic rigor with imagination, as well as ambition with a deep love of music. His performances are praised for their precision and clarity, while his style is noted as subtle and unobtrusive. He has also served as a jury member at competitions in Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Montenegro, and Russia.

Tatjana Ognjanovič is a Slovenian pianist born in Ljubljana. She began studying piano at the age of four with Darinka Bernetič. She continued her studies at the Academy of Music, University of Ljubljana under Dubravka Tomšič-Srebotnjak, graduating in 1986 and later completing a postgraduate specialization.

From 1986 to 1993, she lived in Vienna, where she studied with Hans Petermandl at the University of Music and Performing Arts, and from 1991 to 1993 also with Viktor Merzhanov at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory.

She received the University Prešeren Award in 1985 and has won prizes at international piano competitions in Zagreb, Vienna, Porto, Athens, Valencia, and Jaén. She has also received three special awards for the best performance of a Beethoven sonata.

She has performed at numerous international festivals, including the Ljubljana Festival, Music Biennale Zagreb, Carinthian Summer, Prague Spring International Music Festival, and the Kuala Lumpur Piano Festival. Her concert career has taken her to fifteen European countries, as well as to Malaysia and Singapore, performing in major venues such as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Brucknerhaus in Linz, the Beethoven House in Bonn, and the Palau de la Música in Valencia.

In addition to solo recitals, she has performed piano concertos by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Prokofiev, and Štuhec with various Slovenian and international orchestras and conductors. In recent years, she has also focused on chamber music; she is a member of the Amael Piano Trio together with Volodja Balžalorsky and Damir Hamidulin. With the trio, she performed at Carnegie Hall in New York in June 2006.

Her repertoire ranges from Baroque to contemporary music, including premieres of works by Slovenian composers. Her recordings have been released on eight albums and include works by Turel, Srebotnjak, George Crumb, Erik Satie, Alexander Scriabin, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

She began teaching at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana in 1992 and has been a full-time faculty member since her appointment as assistant professor in 1993. She was promoted to associate professor in 1999 and to full professor of piano in 2005. For many years, she has also led summer piano schools in Brač and Škofja Loka. She has served as a jury member at several international piano competitions in Austria, including the Beethoven Competition in Vienna in 2005.

Tomaž Petrač, a distinguished Slovenian pianist, was born in 1969 into a musical family in Maribor. He took his first
performing steps at the local music school. To date, he has given several hundred concerts both in Slovenia and abroad.

His concert career has taken him to Italy, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, 
Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Albania. As a soloist, he has performed in renowned cultural centers and concert halls, including the Stadtcasino Basel, the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall and the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb, the Kolarac Hall in Belgrade, the Army Hall in Skopje, the Cankarjev dom and the Slovenian Philharmonic Hall in Ljubljana, and the Union Hall in Maribor.

He has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Macedonian Philharmonic, the Maribor Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Society of Slovene Composers, the FMU Orchestra in Belgrade, the Varaždin Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the SNG Maribor, among others, under the direction of conductors such as Anton Nanut, Marko Munih, Marko Letonja, Simon Robinson, Howard Rodman, Nikolai Alekseyev, Igor Gjadrov, Nikša Bareza, Srboljub Šepić, Eduard Ambarcumjan, Luca Voltolini, Tiziano Fačini, Daniel de Villiers, Johannes Bruns, Pavle Dešpalj, Emmanuel Villaume, and Philip von Steinaecker.

His extensive repertoire includes more than twenty piano concertos by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Prokofiev, Lucijan Marija Škerjanc, Primož Šivic, and Blaž Arnič. He is also known for demanding solo recital programs, including works such as the four Ballades and four Scherzi by Frédéric Chopin, Chopin’s Second and Third Sonatas, and both books of Brahms’s Paganini Variations.

He is deeply committed to the interpretation of works by Slovenian composers and has performed numerous pieces by Primož Ramovš, Alojz Srebotnjak, Vito Ukmar, Marijan Mihevc, Davorin Bavdek, Pavel Mihelčič, Žiga Stanič, and Nenad Firšt, among others.

Petrač has recorded for RTV Slovenia, HRT, and RAI, and his recordings have been released on ten albums. He is also a dedicated chamber musician, performing with renowned artists such as Andrej Petrač, Moshe Epstein, Jovan Maksimović, Rudolf Lakatoš, Vida Vujić, Aleksander Milošev, Miran Kolbl, Karolina Šantl Zupan, and Nadja Drakslar.

He graduated with distinction from the Academy of Music, University of Ljubljana in the class of Dubravka Tomšič-Srebotnjak. After graduation, he continued his studies in Basel with Rudolf Buchbinder, earning a concert diploma. During his studies, he also trained with Leonid Brumberg and Paul Badura-Skoda, and studied chamber music with Antonio Janigro. In 1988, he received the Prešeren Award from the University of Ljubljana.

Tomaž Petrač is a full professor of piano at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. More than 30 of his graduates and postgraduate students have successfully pursued careers as performers or music educators in Slovenia and Croatia.

Born in 1967 in Belgrade, Serbia, Aleksandar Serdar has carved an impressive path in the world of classical piano. He graduated in 1988 from the distinguished Art Academy of Novi Sad and earned his Master of Music in 1992 from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. Under the tutelage of Leon Fleisher for five years, he later continued his studies with Sergio Perticaroli at the Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Serdar's talent has been recognized with several prestigious international awards, including Monza, Carlo Zecchi, Vercelli-Italy, Palm Beach, Cincinnati in the USA, and the Arthur Rubinstein in Tel Aviv (4th prize). His performances have taken him to esteemed venues across Italy, the United States, France, Switzerland, Russia, Israel, and many more countries.

He has collaborated with renowned orchestras such as the Dresden Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Bremen Philharmonic, Slovenian Philharmonic, and conductors like Marcello Viotti, Erich Kunzel, Leonid Grin, and Emil Tabakov. His 1998 CD, released by EMI Classics, generated significant interest from promoters and the press. Serdar's second double disc was released in Luxembourg in December 2004.

With an extensive discography under his belt, he has recorded CDs for the Serbian record label PGP, featuring Baroque repertoire, Tchaikovsky's Seasons, and works by F. Chopin. Since 1999, Aleksandar Serdar has served as a senior professor at the Academy for Music in Belgrade, Serbia, and has been teaching at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana since 2016.

In addition to his performing and teaching career, Serdar has also made a mark as a jury member at national and international piano competitions. His thoughtful musicianship, imagination, and personality have earned him accolades, such as the quote from Gramophone magazine in February 1999: "Aleksandar Serdar is clearly a thoughtful musician with imagination and personality."