Daniela Varínska

Daniela Varínska performs both as a soloist and in chamber ensembles. She has appeared in concerts and at leading music festivals in Europe, Canada, USA and Asia. She has played with many Slovak and foreign ensembles led by conductors from Slovakia, Czech Republic and abroad (Ondrej Lenárd, Ľudovít Rajter, Bystrík Režucha, Ladislav Slovák; Zdeněk Košler; James Judd, Jerzy Katlewicz, Andrew Mogrelia, Anton Nanut, Charles Olivieri-Munroe, Alexander Rahbari, Jac van Steen etc.) Her chamber music partners include various prominent Slovak and foreign artists. She has appeared on stage with a number of chamber ensembles: Cappella Istropolitana, Musica Aeterna, Slovak chamber Soloists, Moyzes Quartet, Flauto Dolce, Maria Theresia Ensemble and Musa Antiqua. Besides piano, Varínska is also acknowledged as a player of harpsichord and hammerklavier, receiving invitations to international festivals also as a soloist on these instruments e.g. Bach-Festival Stuttgart (DE), Vienna (AT), Prague Spring festival (CZ), Haydn festival in Dolní Lukavice (CZ)). She has made recordings for Slovak Radio and foreign radios and collaborates with Slovak Television (e.g. film F. Chopin: Sonata in B Minor op. 35). She often leads seminars for teachers, working with pupils of various ages.

“Daniela Varínska is most frequently encountered as a performer of demanding solo piano pieces, as well as in concerts with orchestras. Her style is an ideal marriage of the principles of solo and chamber music. While being evocative and having a high degree of imagination, her ideas of the work are always built with a rational overview. Her piano style is highly developed. Varínska does not dwell on the beauty of details, which serve only as means to express the overall conception of the piece. Here she is guided not only by her natural instinct and experience of many years, but also by a typical deference towards the personality of the composer and his work. Her handling of tone is highly cultured: she never plays about with the tone but rather uses it for her conceptual purposes. Thanks to her technical capability, she can master even the most demanding piano pieces. She tries to avoid shallow virtuoso glitter, favouring difficult pieces that have weighty content, as her repertoire will testify. Composers always feel confident in entrusting their pieces to her. In chamber music performances she not only adapts to the character of her collaborators but is able also to harmonise the demands of style with her own creative contribution, maximising the content of the piece while at the same time providing inspiration for her colleagues.”
(Vladimír Čížik: Dictionary of Slovak Concert Art Vol. I, Hudobné centrum, Bratislava 2002, p. 150)