The excellent jury of the Prague Spring 2026 piano competition
Daniel Browell (UK) – chair of the jury
Daniel Browell studied in Birmingham, Paris, London (at the Royal Academy of Music) and Chicago. Described as a pianist “of considerable intelligence and grace” (The Guardian), he performs regularly across Europe, Asia and North America, and has made debut appearances at major venues including the BBC Proms and Wigmore Hall in London. With the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble, a group dedicated to contemporary music of which he is a permanent member, he has appeared at leading festivals such as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Musicahora Festival (Chile), the Belfast International Festival, and Classical:NEXT in Berlin. Together they have made numerous recordings for BBC Radio 3 and premiered dozens of new works by composers including Greg Caffrey, Piers Hellawell, Jane O’Leary and Ian Wilson. Alongside his performing career, he is also a highly sought-after teacher: he has given many masterclasses in Europe, China, the Americas and the Middle East, and since 2014 has been Associate Head of Keyboard at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Joonas Ahonen (Finland)
Joonas Ahonen, Professor at the University of Music and Dance Cologne, was a member of Klangforum Wien for twelve years, during which time he collaborated with composers such as Tristan Murail and Beat Furrer. He is well known to Prague audiences for his outstanding performance of György Ligeti’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with Klangforum Wien at Prague Offspring 2023, and has also performed Unsuk Chin’s Piano Concerto with the Basel Sinfonietta and George Crumb’s Makrokosmos at the Salzburg Festival, among others. Equally at home in the music of the 20th and 21st centuries as in works of the 18th and 19th centuries, he also performs on the fortepiano. Since 2024 he has served as Artistic Director of the Finnish ensemble Avanti!, which specialises in contemporary music. He is also an artistic partner of the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, with whom he has appeared at venues and festivals including Teatro alla Scala, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Toppan Hall in Tokyo, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, and the Prague Spring Festival 2025.
Dina Yoffe (Latvia, Germany)
A laureate of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw and the Robert Schumann International Competition in Zwickau, Dina Yoffe has, over the course of her distinguished concert career, performed with ensembles and conductors such as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta, the NHK Symphony Orchestra with Sir Neville Marriner, and Kremerata Baltica with Gidon Kremer. She has appeared at major festivals and in prestigious concert halls across Europe, including the Barbican Centre in London, Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, and the Royal Palace in The Hague, as well as in Japan (notably Suntory Hall in Tokyo) and the United States. A former professor at universities in Tel Aviv and Aichi (Japan), she is currently a Visiting Professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and Professor at the EuroArts Academy. She has also given masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music in London and in Salzburg as part of the Mozarteum International Summer Academy. An honorary member of the Chopin Society in Warsaw, she has served on the juries of piano competitions in Cleveland, Hamamatsu, Barcelona and Weimar.
Leonel Morales (Spain)
The Cuban–Spanish pianist Leonel Morales combines a successful concert career – which has taken him to such major venues as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Beethovensaal in Stuttgart, and many other prestigious concert halls across Europe, Asia and the Americas – with an exceptionally prolific pedagogical activity. He is currently a professor at the Salzburg Summer Academy, the Alfonso X el Sabio University, and the Forum Musikae School of Music in Madrid. He has given masterclasses in Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, Poland, Germany, Croatia, Mexico, South Korea, China, Japan, and the United States. Every year, dozens of students travel to attend the International Masterclass and Piano Festival “Leonel Morales & Friends” in Granada, which he founded. He has served on the juries of international competitions in Cleveland, Lyon, Grosseto, Vienna, Shanghai, San Remo, Rio de Janeiro, and Shenzhen. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the María Herrero International Competition in Granada and of the International Piano Competition “Spanish Composers” in Madrid. In 2008, he was awarded the prestigious Italian Tasto d’Argento Award for his artistic achievements.
Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń (Poland)
The Polish pianist of Bulgarian origin, Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń, is Professor at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. She has given masterclasses in Poland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan and China, and has served on the juries of numerous prestigious international piano competitions. She chaired the jury of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in two consecutive editions, in 2015 and 2021. Among her renowned students are Rafał Blechacz, Jarred Dunn, and Lü Tianyao, a finalist of the 2025 Chopin Competition. For her outstanding contribution to and achievements in the field of classical music, Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń has received a number of state honours, including the “Zasłużony Kulturze Gloria Artis” Medal.
Martin Kasík (Czech Republic)
His victories at the Prague Spring International Music Competition 1998 and the Young Concert Artists Competition in New York 1999 opened the door to leading concert stages around the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and the Berlin Philharmonie. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Singapore Philharmonic, and the Prague Symphony Orchestra (FOK), working with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Yakov Kreizberg, Ingo Metzmacher, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Libor Pešek, Jakub Hrůša, and Tomáš Netopil. His recordings for Supraphon and Arco Diva have received awards and critical acclaim in leading music journals including Gramophone, Répertoire, and Harmonie. For several years, he has been passing on his experience to young pianists as a teacher at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and at the Prague Conservatory, and he is also Artistic Director of the Chopin Festival in Mariánské Lázně.
Ivo Kahánek (Czech Republic)
The overall winner of the Prague Spring International Music Competition 2004, Ivo Kahánek has collaborated with leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bamberg Symphony, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. His repertoire ranges from the Baroque to the 21st century, with a particular focus on Romantic music. Internationally, he is regarded as a specialist in the interpretation of works by Czech composers, especially Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, and Bohuslav Martinů. He made his debut at the BBC Proms in 2007 and has worked with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Semyon Bychkov, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Jiří Bělohlávek, Zdeněk Mácal, and Jakub Hrůša. His recordings for Supraphon, for which he has been an exclusive artist since 2007, have received numerous awards, including the BBC Music Magazine Award, Diapason d’Or, Choix de Classique, and nominations for the Opus Klassik and the International Classical Music Award. He is actively involved in a wide range of educational projects, including the MenArt Academy, the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, and the Prague Conservatoire, where he was appointed Director in 2025. He is Patron of the Harmonie Endowment Fund and a member of the PETROF Art Family.
