Diana Ketler
Professor of Chamber Music with Piano
- Portrait
Diana was born in Riga into a well-known family of musicians. She began studying music and piano at the age of five at the E Darzins Special Music School in Riga and made her concert debut at the age of 11 with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Vassily Sinaisky. Diana graduated from the Latvian Academy of Music with highest honors in 1993 after studying with Theofil Bikis. From 1992 to 1994, she studied at the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg under Karl-Heinz Kammerling. In 1994, Diana continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London in the class of Christopher Elton, graduating in 1996 with the Dip RAM. In 1996/1997 and 2000/2001, Diana received the Hodgson Piano Fellowship from the Academy.
Diana has performed as a soloist with the Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra, the Riga Chamber Orchestra, the Georgian Chamber Orchestra, and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. She has given numerous concerts in the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Russia, and most European countries. Notably, she has performed at the Gstaad Musiksommer Festival, the Ravello Music Festival, the St Gallen Music Festival, the Carinthian Summer Festival, and the Kobe International Art Festival. Diana has given recitals at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, the Purcell Room, the Glenn Gould Studios in Toronto, the Tokyo Opera City Hall, the Osaka Symphony Hall, the Atheneum in Bucharest, and other prestigious venues.
She has collaborated with artists such as Wolfram Christ, Konstantin Lifschitz, Daishin Kashimoto, Adrian Brendel, Baiba Skride, Remus Azoitei, Sasha Sitkovetsky, Bernhard Hedenborg, Narimichi Kawabata, Inga Kalna, and Marlis Petersen. As a member of Ensemble Raro, she regularly tours Europe and Japan. Diana has given several UK and German premieres of works by contemporary Baltic composers and collaborates closely with Peteris Vasks and Arvo Pärt.
Diana's performances have been broadcast on radio and television in Japan, the United Kingdom (BBC 3, Classic FM), Germany (Bavarian Radio), Romania, Latvia, and Austria. Since 2003, Diana has been a piano professor at the Royal Academy of Music. She has given masterclasses in Spain, the Czech Republic, England, Latvia, and the former Yugoslavia, and has been a jury member for the Jeunesses Musicales International Piano Competition in Bucharest. Since 2004, Diana has been the artistic director of the Chiemgauer Musikfrühling Festival in Bavaria, Germany.
