Noted for her lyrical and passionate interpretations of everything from Bach to contemporary composers, Jasmina Samssuli has a rare ability to communicate the essence of music: she draws in her audience with a very intimate sound and compellingly open, spirited playing.
Appearances at international music festivals such as Schwetzinger Musikfestspiele have led her to perform on concert platforms in Europe, Africa and Asia. Her recent performance at the Berlin Philharmonie of Galina Ustvolskaya’s piano concerto was especially well received. Both as a soloist and a chamber musician, she has broadcast widely on German and French radio and television. With a repertoire ranging from the baroque period to the 21st century, she has given first performances of works of numerous composers.
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As a member of the ensemble Shonorities, she combines the classical tradition with a wide spectrum of musical styles, reviving folk traditions through modern classical interpretations and giving concerts merging experimental instrumental music with electronic and crossover compositions.
Cross-cultural influences have long since cast a decisive influence over her playing: her parents originated from Greece and Niger; she was born and brought up in Germany, starting to play the piano aged 9, and early successes at piano competitions soon followed.
Jasmina practises, teaches and writes not just in the musical world but at the interface of music and other artistic disciplines. Together with the group of artists Chinese Whispers, she was awarded one of Germany’s most prestigious prizes for interdisciplinary art, the Karl-Hofer Preis. This led her to be appointed Visiting Professor of Artistic Transformation Processes at the University of the Arts in Berlin and as a visiting lecturer at workshops at St. Martin’s School of Art in London, Zurich University of the Arts, and art schools in Budapest and Düsseldorf.
Jasmina studied solo piano in Hamburg at the Hochschule der Musik with Marian Migdal and Ralf Gothoni before being awarded scholarships by both the German government and the Mozart Academy in Prague to continue her studies with some of the world’s leading piano interpreters and pedagogues, including Lazar Bermann, Maria Curcio, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and John O’Conor, while she completed her postgraduate studies in London with Joan Havill and Joanna MacGregor at the Royal Academy of Music where she completed a PhD on the etudes of Claude Debussy.