ABOUT YILDIZ & YILDIZ PIANO DUO

Dr. Tuncay Yildiz and Dr. Gergana Yildiz are a husband-and-wife piano duo based in Melbourne, whose combined careers span concert stages, conservatoriums, and recording studios across Europe and Australia. Both hold doctorates in piano performance and have built parallel careers as concert pianists before joining forces as a celebrated two-piano ensemble.

The duo won First Prize in the Piano Duo Category at the IMKA International Music Competition in May 2018. Their two-piano recitals frequently spotlight repertoire by Turkish, Azerbaijani, and Central Asian composers — including Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Fazil Say, Fikret Amirov, and Arno Babajanian — bringing underrepresented voices from this musical tradition to Australian audiences. They have performed at University of Tasmania’s Conservatorium Recital Hall, The Melbourne Recital Hall Primrose Potter Salon, and the Church of All Nations, Carlton, in 2025, where they performed MAQAM for Two Pianos.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Dr. Tuncay Yildiz

Dr. Yildiz earned his Ph.D. in Performing Arts (Piano Performance) from the Academy of Music, Dance, and Fine Arts in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (2013–2017), with a dissertation on the piano repertoire of Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, studying under Prof. Roxana Bogdanova. His training traces back through a distinguished pedagogical lineage, including study under Alexander Mekaev (a pupil of Stanislav Neuhaus) and Prof. Zohrab Adigozelzade (a pupil of Pavel Serebriakov and Yakov Flier).

His career has included a full-time lectureship in piano and accompaniment at Trakya University in Edirne, Turkey, and a piano accompanist lectureship at the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music. He has appeared as soloist with several orchestras, including the Pazardzhik State Symphony Orchestra in Bulgaria and academic orchestras in Turkey. A career highlight was his complete performance of Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux — all seven books, 273 pages — at the DARK MOFO Festival at MONA in 2019. Since 2018, Tuncay has owned and operated the Amadeus Piano School (first in Hobart, now in Melbourne) and currently also teaches piano at Billanook College in Victoria.

Dr. Gergana Yildiz

Dr. Yildiz completed her Ph.D. in Piano Performance at the University of Tasmania (2020), with a thesis examining the aksak rhythmic principle in the solo piano works of Bartók, Ligeti, Pipkov, Kazandjiev, Saygun, and Baran. She holds a Master's and Bachelor's in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Bulgaria, and undertook further specialisation in piano and chamber music at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.

Her career includes a full-time piano lectureship at Trakya University in Edirne, Turkey, and doctoral recitals at the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music. She has performed internationally at the Lithuanian Festival of Contemporary Music in Vilnius and the Aurora Chamber Music Festival in Sweden, and has given solo recitals at MONA in Hobart. Her 2019 recording of solo piano music by Bartók, Pipkov, and Saygun was broadcast on ABC Radio. Alongside her performing career, she has held teaching posts at St Kevin's College and Melbourne High School, and has co-owned the Amadeus Piano School with Tuncay since 2018.