A Life for Music

The pianist Helena Rocha v.Oertzenwas born in Porto, Portugal. She graduated with distinction from Porto Conservatory with Professor Helena de Sá Costa. During her studies she won the 1 st prize of the Calouste Gulbenkian Competition.

With a grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst/German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), she pursued her studies at Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst/the Hamburg University of Music and Performing Arts with Professor Conrad Hansen.

Here she also completed the Concert Examination with distinction. Then, there followed concert tours and master classes with renowned pianists, such as Karl Engel, Nadie Boulanger, Yvonne Léfèbure, Sándor Vègh, Hans Leygraff, Yara Bernette.

The Albert Schweitzer Association in Gunsbach, Alsace regularly organises piano performance courses, in which Helena Rocha v. Oertzen participated as assistant in the courses given by Professor Helena de Sá e Costa and Professor Luiz Moura Castro. She was then appointed as Piano Professor at that same University of Music and Performing Arts by the Senate of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Since then and up to the present time, her life has been marked by extensive concert tours in Germany and abroad. She has an extensive repertoire. Her concert tours take her to Italy, France, Portugal, Greece, Switzerland and Germany, as well as to Asia. The artist is also well versed in chamber music and the piano accompaniment of songs. In the course of her life she has performed with orchestras of international renown.

Helena would like to express her special thanks to Art with a poem by Franz Schober and music by Franz Schubert: