Olga Stezhko 

Olga Stezhko is an award-winning concert pianist and critically acclaimed recording artist, known for her striking and idiosyncratic programmes that often explore hidden connections between music, science and history spanning the past four centuries.

Acclaimed by Classical Source in a Wigmore Hall review as “a supremely delicate master of her instrument” with “an extraordinary presence,” Olga has performed internationally, from the Barbican Hall in London and Salle Cortot in Paris to Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Born in Minsk, Olga was educated in Belarus, Italy, and the UK, where she completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with distinction at the Royal Academy of Music.

She has won numerous international competitions and awards, including the Grand Prix at the Halina Czerny-Stefańska In Memoriam International Piano Competition in Poland and First Prize at the Nikolai Rubinstein International Piano Competition in France.

As the pianist of the Marsyas Trio, her Artist By-Fellowship at Churchill College will continue the group’s research into the historical tradition of “musical translation” and their fruitful collaboration with Cambridge-based composers.

Since 2009, the Marsyas Trio has championed the vast historic repertoire for flute, cello, and piano, while also expanding the genre through commissioning and recording projects. Their work offers audiences fascinating insights into gender, societal, and political themes. Over the past decade, the ensemble has collaborated with many of the UK’s leading composers, including Michael Finnissy, Judith Weir, Elena Firsova, Hilary Tann and Laura Bowler.

Their discography includes In the Theatre of Air (NMC Recordings, 2018), which debuted at No. 7 on the classical charts, and Alternative Readings (Métier | Divine Art Recordings, 2024), a collaboration with award-winning mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean featuring music by Michael Finnissy. The album received widespread critical acclaim and was named the “Chamber Choice” by BBC Music Magazine in a five-star review.

The 2024/25 season will take the Trio across the UK, including performances at the Three Choirs Festival, Hay-on-Wye and Howard Assembly Rooms in Leeds, where the Trio has been appointed as the FUAM Ensemble in Residence at the University of Leeds.

Olga’s solo highlights include performances at Bridgewater Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Palermo Classica Festival, the Ulverston International Music Festival, and a tour in Norway, where she premiered Blooming – a new work for piano, chamber orchestra and narrator by Kari Beate Tandberg.

The piece, based on the book The Unwomanly Face of War by exiled Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich, highlights a recurring theme in Olga’s work: raising awareness of the rich culture and history of her native Belarus, whose people suffer unimaginable repression under Lukashenko’s dictatorial regime. More broadly, Olga’s projects aim to nurture the power of international solidarity in supporting post-colonial countries through artistic collaborations.

Olga also has a deep passion for astrophysics. In collaboration with Dr. Ewan Campbell, she will work with the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge on a project that explores how groundbreaking ideas and cutting-edge research in astronomy can be communicated through an awe-inspiring interplay of music and science. This continues her ongoing artistic research into how music can give meaning to complex scientific concepts and why it is essential to engage the general public with the latest discoveries in astrophysics.

A recent example of such work is Red, Green, Blue, in which Olga explored the fluid relationship between art, nature and technology through an interdisciplinary synthesis of music and artistically interpreted satellite data. The show premiered in a series of concerts in Norway in September 2023, including a performance at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.

Olga’s debut album, Eta Carinae (Luminum Records, 2014), fused astronomy with music by Scriabin and Busoni. It was hailed by Gramophone Magazine as “an outstanding debut” and “not a record for the faint-hearted, but rather for those who enjoy dark and menacing regions of the mind.” Her second album, Et la lune descend (Palermo Classica, 2018), featuring all-Debussy works, received unanimous critical acclaim from publications including International Piano Magazine, The Arts Desk and BBC Music Magazine.