Christina Bjørkøe - Release June 6th 2025
Christina Bjørkøe
Piano
The pianist Christina Bjørkøe is one of Denmark’s leading musicians and is in demand as a recitalist, chamber musician and as a soloist with symphony orchestras. Born in 1970, Christina Bjørkøe started playing the piano at the age of 5. At the age of 7 she became a student of Therese Koppel, who taught her until 1990, after which she was admitted to The Juilliard School of Music in New York as a student at Seymour Lipkin. Later, she completed her studies at Anne Øland at The Royal Danish Academy of Music.
Bjørkøe made her debut as a soloist with orchestra at the age of 16 and has since given concerts as a soloist and chamber musician in Denmark, across Europe, as well as in the USA, South America and Asia. She has been a soloist with most Danish symphony orchestras, including the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the Czech Chamber Orchestra, the Recife Festival Orchestra in Brazil, the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of India in Mumbai and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and is highly in demand as a recitalist.
Christina Bjørkøe has an extensive discography, both solo and as a chamber musician, and has in addition to her critically acclaimed recordings of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, works by Fanny Mendelssohn and the Schumanns (Robert AND Clara) as well as Chopin, but she has particularly distinguished herself in her advocacy of Danish music. Her recordings of the music of Carl Nielsen, Niels W. Gade, Hakon Børresen, Louis Glass, Niels Viggo Bentzon, Herman D. Koppel, Vagn Holmboe, Poul Rovsing Olsen, Axel Borup Jørgensen and others have received numerous accolades, and many are considered benchmark performances.
Bjørkøe’s awards and accolades including the Danish music award P2 Prisen for Best Classical Solo Release for her recordings of Knudåge Riisager’s piano works (2005), and Carl Nielsen’s collected piano works (2009). She twice won First Prize in the Steinway Competition and has been awarded several other prizes and grants including the presti- gious Victor Borge Award, and most recently, the Wilhelm Hansen Foundation’s Honorary Grant 2021.
Bjørkøe is currently an associate professor at the Danish National Academy of Music, Odense.