Olimpia Tolan

Olimpia Tolan was born in Arad in Romania in 1978 and began playing the piano at the age of six. After initial studies in Romania and Hungary, she studied at the Basel Academy of Music until 2002, taking chamber music with Gérard Wyss and rehearsal piano with Albert Guttman. She attended the master classes of Sándor Falvai and France Clidat.
She won prizes at several competitions in Romania and Hungary. In 2000 and 2002 she was awarded bursaries by the Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation and the Swiss Musicians’ Society.
Olimpia Tolan regularly gives concerts in Europe and has appeared as a soloist with various orchestras.
In Budapest she has performed in the chamber music hall of Franz Liszt’s house and appeared at the Béla Bartók Memorial House, where she played music by both composers for Hungarian National Television.

In the cello duo with her husband she regularly performs at international music festivals like the Lucerne Festival, the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, the Spring Festival in Sopron (Hungary), the Festival du Jura, the Sommets Musicaux in Gstaad and in concert series at the Philharmonic Hall in Bratislava and the Burghof in Lörrach. She has performed at famous venues like the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, the Bohuslav Martinu Hall in Prague and the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest. She has also appeared at the Concertino International in Aschaffenburg and at the Swiss Expo ’02 in Murten. She has worked with Schweizer Radio DRS 2, BayerischerRundfunk, Radio Espace2, Czech Radio, Hungarian National Television and various regional Romanian television stations.

The cello and piano duo in which she regularly plays together with husband Adam Mital is in great demand.