Lecturer

Email: Catherine.lemoniodohert@TUDublin.ie

Catherina Lemoni was born in Rhodes (Greece), where she began her piano studies with Despina Delaporta at the age of 7.

Three years later she received a scholarship and set off on her own to study with the renowned soloist Achille Colassis at the Lausanne Conservatoire, Switzerland.

At the age of 11 she was a laureate at the Greek Young Musician of the Future at Athens and two years later was awarded the Paderewski Prize in Lausanne. She won First Prize at the Swiss Young Musician of the Future both at the age of 14 and 16, and First Prize at the International Young Pianists Competition in Senigallia, Italy.

At the Lausanne Conservatoire she received a First Prize Diploma of Virtuosity at seventeen and she was awarded her Soloist’s Licence at the same Conservatoire in 1995 while studying with Christian Favre, who had assumed the responsibility for Catherina’s development after the death of Colassis. At the end of her studies, Catherina had the opportunity to perform on the world famous Steinway 500,000 which has been signed by the great pianists.

At the 1998 Maria Callas International Piano Competition in Athens she was awarded the Prize for the best Greek participant. After the competition Catherina met the Russian Concert Pianist Lazar Berman, who was a member of the jury, and under his guidance she continued her development.

In 2003, Catherina received the Post-Grade Diploma in Chamber Music at the Geneva Conservatoire in Switzerland under Gui-Michel Caillat. In the same year, she won the "Zulawski Prize" and the "Public Prize" of this competition on Chamonix (France).

Currently a lecturer at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, Catherina is a regular recitalist, concert soloist and enthusiastic chamber musician. She has given performances throughout Europe, most notably at the Purcell Room, London and the Olympic Museum Auditorium in Lausanne, the Paderewski Hall in Lausanne, the Zürcher Kammerorchester Haus in Zurich and at the NCH John Field Room in Dublin and at the Chopin Hall of the Chopin University in Warsaw.

Catherina has played in various Festivals such as the Martinu Festival (Switzerland), Kalomiris Festival (Greece), Ravenna Festival (Italy), Castiglione del Lago Festival (Italy) and Aureo Herrero (Spain). She has performed piano concertos with the Philharmonic Budweis Orchestra, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Athens Chamber orchestra, the Salonique Orchestra, the Silesian Chamber orchestra, and the Kaunas Chamber Orchestra.

She has released two solo CDs, "Catherina en recital" and "Hommage a Haydn" with the Philharmonic Budweis Orchestra, and a CD in collaboration with the group "Reflecting Strings", "Fugato". In DIT she has engaged in collaborative recordings including Beethoven's Irish Songs and The Songs of Frederick May.

She is also the co-founder of the Paderewski Piano Trio in Switzerland (2003) and the group has performed internationally to critical acclaim, including a concert at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin which was hailed by critic Dick O'Riordan (Sunday Businesss Post) as 'a sublime concert...undoubtedly at the very peak of chamber music offerings'.