Poland
Grzegorz Kurzyñski is a graduate of the University of Music in Wroclaw (Poland), under the tutelage of Professor Wlodzimierz Obidowicz. He has also earned degrees from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels where he studied under Professor Jean Claude Vanden- Eynden, and the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he studied under Professor Joseph Kalichstein and Professor Abbey Simon. He was awarded fellowships by the Belgium Ministry of Culture as well as The Barbara Piasecka-Johnson Foundation in the United States, and also received a scholarship from the outstanding American pianist Malcolm Frager. He has done concert tours in Poland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Russia, the Ukraine, Luxemburg, the United States, the Czech Republic, Australia and Italy. He has been recorded many times on radio, television and for CDs. He has been and continues to be a juror for many national and international piano competitions.
He has been teaching piano since 1972 at the University of Music in Wroclaw and the University of Music in Poznan (Poland). Presently, he is the head of the piano section and rector of the University of Music in Wroclaw.

The Netherlands
Born in Moscow in 1951, Michail Markov began studying piano at the age of 7. Three years later, he performed his first solo concert in his hometown with an orchestra in the Concert Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, where he later continued his musical education with Professor Victor Merzjanov. In 1975 M. Markov graduated with honors at the Conservatory. These honors included mentions for concert and chamber piano, accompaniment, as well as for professorship.
In the following years, Michail Markov successfully performed in the Eastern countries of the former Soviet block. In the years just before leaving Russia, he was a deputy director and piano teacher at the famous Moscow Gnessin Special School for musically gifted children. Since 1991, the musician has been living in the Netherlands where he has continued his successful combination of teaching and musical performances. M. Markov has made CD-records in France and Germany with works of D. Schostakovitch, Y. Galperine and R. Shchedrin. Since mid-nineties he is working as professor at the piano department of the Conservatory Saxion Hogeschool in Enschede, the Netherlands. M. Markov is also the co-founder of the special Young Talents piano department of this Conservatory.
M. Markov has been invited to give Master Classes at many International Music Festivals and Summer Schools in the Netherlands, USA, Austria, Russia, Poland and Ukraine. M. Markov is the founder and president of the Foundation �Russian Music Tradition in the Netherlands� and also the artistic leader of the International Piano Competition for Young Musicians in Enschede, the Netherlands.

USA

Dr. Paul Pollei (Salt Lake City, USA) is coordinator of Graduate Keyboard Studies, member of the piano faculty at Brigham Young University, Utah, USA and artistic Director of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition. The Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation sponsors festivals and international competitions. In addition, he serves as advisor for the music faculty of the Waterfored School in Sandy, Utah. He served as faculty member of the Tuacahn Center for the Arts in St. George, Utah.

Dr. Pollei has been a jury member for many national and international competitions throughout the world and has served as a member of juries in Japan, China, Australia, throughout Europe, and in all states of the United States. He is founding member of the American Piano Quartet, devoted to research, performance, and re-publication of music for two pianos/eight hands. The quartet has performed in concert worldwide and continues an active research, performing and recording career.

Dr. Pollei is the devoted teacher to many prizewinning students and is a frequent lecturer for teacher workshops and masterclasses in America and throughout the world.

Germany
Peter Waas was born in 1950. From 1965 his teachers have been Heinz Vogler, Leipzig, Jakow Sak, Elisso Wirssaladse and Tatjana Nikolaewa at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, Moscow, Amadeus Webersinke at the Academy of Music Dresden. Since 1993 Peter Waas is professor for piano at The Liszt School of Music in Weimar.
He has been the first director of the Institute for keyed instruments and ancient music since its establishment in 1999. His concert career as soloist and chamber musician mostly develops in European countries and Asia.
P. Waas is initiator and artistic director of the International Franz Liszt Competition for Young Pianists 2005 which will be pursued in the years 2008 and 2011 in the age groups 13, 14-16 and 17-19. He also gives master classes in various European countries and China.

The Netherlands
Sytze Smit (1944) studied violin and composition at the Conservatory of Music in Groningen, his native city. For more than ten years he was a member of the Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, before he decided to combine composing with writing about music and with consultancy.
The Dutch choreographer Rudi van Dantzig used Smit�s composition Quipu for his ballet Niemandsland. In 1997 Isabelle van Keulen opened her Delft Chamber Music Festival with the composition Songs and Games for Violin and 8 percussionists, a piece Sytze Smit especially wrote for her. As an adviser, he played a conspicuous role in the process of reorganizing the Dutch orchestral world.
For almost fourteen years Smit was the editor in chief of the highly regarded monthly musical magazine Entracte. In that quality, he made a series of interviews with almost all leading musicians and choreographers in the world.
Between 1996 and 2001, Sytze Smit worked in Enschede as a director of the Conservatorium Hogeschool Enschede. Since spring 2001 he is using all his time for composition and for running his consultancy company Uilenspiegel, advising all kinds of musical and governmental institutions. In 2007 Sytze Smit was appointed to be the Artistic Advisor of the Amman Symphony Orchestra in Jordan.

France
Born in 1945 in Kiev, Ukraine, he studied at the Kiev Gliére State Music College and after that he graduated as a pianist and composer from the Ufa State Institute of Arts. After graduation, he worked in Chelyabinsk for several years as a Professor at the Music College and at the same time composed in different genres - ballet, symphonies, choir-, chamber-, and theatre music. In Moscow, where he moved to, Youli Galperin has continued his successful mix of pedagogy and composer work. He worked as a Professor at the Moscow Gnessine National Conservatory and a Musical Director of the State Theatre �Hermitage�. Since 1990, he has worked in Paris, at the Conservatory �Claude Debussy� and at the Municipal Conservatory at Ivry-sur-Seine as a Professor of piano and composition. Youli Galperin is the founder and first director of �l�Academy d�Art Franco- Russe� in Paris and the President of Association �Tradition Musical Russe� in France. His compositions are performed at the different festivals of modern music at the famous concert halls in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, The Netherlands, Romania, and France. Galperin�s works have been published and recorded in different countries.