Galina Nikolin
Known for her innate musicality, sensitivity and charismatic stage presence, pianist Galina Nikolin is an accomplished young artist committed to embracing spontaneity and genuine artistry through creative, highly communicative performances.
Galina has won over 50 top prizes at national and international piano competitions, making her orchestra debut at the age of 8 with Dusan Skovran Chamber Orchestra at Kolarac concert hall in Belgrade, and solo recital debut at the age of 9.
Galina was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 2001. Coming from a musical family, she grew up listening to her mother playing piano at home. This environment fostered the beginning of her musical career as a pianist which started at the age of 6. After studying by ear for over a year, she enrolled in the Josif Marinkovic Music School, where she completed her primary and secondary music education under the tutelage of her mother Sandra Petkovic. In 2009, she won Grand Prize for the first time at the National Competition of Serbia and held the title for the next 7 years.
Since the age of nine, Galina has embarked on an impressive career as a young performer on many international competition stages. Her debut took place at the Citta di Barletta Piano Competition in 2010, where she was awarded first prize. Later that year she won Grand Prix at the Savshinski Concurs in St. Petersburg. She then returned to Russia in 2011 and won third prize at Step Towards Mastery Piano Competition. In 2012, Galina won first prize at the Stockholm International Music Competition in Sweden and third prize at Isidor Bajic Piano Memorial in Novi Sad, where she was admitted as the youngest competitor. Other prizes include laureate of Davorin Jenko Competition (2012, 2018), first prize at Belgrade Chopin Fest (2012, 2014, 2016), first prize at EPTA Piano Competition in Osijek (2015), Silver medal at Bolshoi Festival in Mokra Gora (2016), and first and special prize for the performance of classical sonata at Slavic Music Festival in Moscow (2017).
In addition to her achievements abroad, Galina is a nationally recognized young pianist in Serbia. She received the Student of Generation in 2014 and 2017 by the Serbian Government, and in 2015 Galina was the youngest participant to ever perform at Serbia’s most prestigious classical music festival, BEMUS. The same year, she premiered and recorded Seven Pieces for Piano by acclaimed Serbian composer, Aleksandar Vujic.
Beyond the competition stage, she attended several international masterclasses, including the Tel-Hai International Piano Masterclass where she was awarded the Pnina Salzman Award for the most outstanding participant in 2017. Other featured appearances were at the Eppan Junior Piano Academy (2018) and the Tianjin Juilliard Piano Festival (2023,2024). Throughout her studies, Galina has studied under Dmitry Bashkirov, Tatiana Zelikman, Andrea Bonatta,Emanuel Krasovsky, Yuri Kot, Alexander Gavrylyuk, Vladimir Ovcinnikov and others.
She is a pianist and chamber musician currently pursuing her Master of Music in Instrumental and Chamber Music at The Tianjin Juilliard School as a recipient of the Tianjin Juilliard Chamber Music Fellowship. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the China Conservatory of Music, where she studied under internationally renowned artist and professor Xiaohan Wang after relocating to Beijing in 2019.
Passionate about collaborative artistry, Galina has performed a wide range of chamber music repertoire alongside acclaimed musicians such as Laurie Smukler, Nicholas Tzavaras, Xiangyu Zhou, Tarn Travers, Yeonjin Kim, Sihao He and others. In Tianjin, she studies Chamber Music with Shanghai Quartet and Piano Performance with Xiaohan Wang.