Tolga Atalay Ün

Turkish-American pianist Tolga Atalay ÜN was born in 1995, in Ankara, Turkey. He is currently in his second year of postgraduate studies (MPerf) at the Royal College of Music, London, studying piano with Prof. Norma Fisher, where he is a ‘C. Bechstein Scholar supported by a Christopher Hogwood Scholarship’. He recently finished his undergraduate studies in Prof. Norma Fisher’s piano class at the RCM, where he was a ‘Kenneth and Violet Scott Scholar’ and he has been admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Music (Honours) with First Class. He also studied the harpsichord for two years with Prof. Terence Charlston and piano with Prof. Niel Immelman at the RCM. In September 2016, Tolga Atalay ÜN was selected as a scholar to the ‘Young Musicians on World Stages’ (YMWS) project created and mentored by Güher & Süher Pekinel with financial support of TÜPRAŞ.

He is also generously supported by Sevda-Cenap And Music Foundation and Talent Unlimited. On the 6th March 2019, he played in the concert organised for the annual President’s Visit from His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales to the RCM. His recent successes include the Beethoven Medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians as a result of winning the First Prize and the Thomas Harris Beethoven Award at the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe’s 2017 Senior Intercollegiate Piano Competition; the First Prize at the Kendall Taylor Beethoven Competition at the RCM; the First Prize, the Prize for the Best Performance of A.A.Saygun and the Audience Prize at the 4th Ahmed Adnan Saygun Piano Competition in 2017 and the Second Prize at the Broadwood Horniman Harpsichord Competition in November 2015.