IRYNA BRAZHNIK

She began her piano studying at the age of four and graduated from the M. Lysenko Special Music School (Kyiv, Ukraine) and the Lisbon Higher School of Music (Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa – ESML), where she completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Music Education. She also holds the title of Specialist in the field of Music awarded by the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon.

She has won prizes in piano competitions in several countries, including Ukraine, Portugal, Georgia, and the Czech Republic. In 2011, she was recognized as the Best Undergraduate Student at ESML and received a scholarship from Caixa Geral de Depósitos. In 2019 and 2024, she was awarded by the GDA Foundation with Prize for the recording of Portuguese repertoire.

Her artistic activity includes solo recitals, collaborations with orchestras, and chamber music concerts in Portugal, France, the USA, among others. She has performed as a soloist with the Kharkiv Chamber Orchestra, the ESML Symphony Orchestra, and the ESML Saxophone Project ensemble, with additional appearances in Cyprus. She collaborates regularly with theatre companies in opera productions and stage performances, and often participates in world premieres of contemporary works.

As a composer, she creates works for piano, chamber groups, and solo or ensemble pieces for wind instruments. She also maintains an active career as a collaborative pianist in competitions, auditions, and concerts, and frequently teaches in masterclasses as a piano professor.

She is co-founder of AiDuo, alongside saxophonist Artur Mendes, with whom she recorded the albums On the way…(2016) and Meeting Point (2023).

Since 2012, she has been part of the teaching staff at the Lisbon Higher School of Music (ESML), where she holds the position of Collaborative Piano Professor.