Barbara Szczepanska was born in Warsaw and graduated from the Chopin Academy in Warsaw. Postgraduate piano studies with Victor Merzhanov at Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow followed.
The Oeuvre of Fryderyk Chopin and the piano sonatas of Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven belong to the core repertory of Barbara Szczepanska. Concert tours led the pianist trough Poland, Hungary, the former Soviet Union, Spain, Italy and Germany. She played with renowned orchestras but also made her reputation as soloist and as chamber musician.
After educational activities at the Academies of Warsaw and of Münster, she became professor of the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf in 1989. From 1998 to 2008 she was vice-rector of the Hochschule. She was Head of the training center for highly talented children of the Robert Schumann Hochschule “Schumann Junior”. In addition, she was Visiting Professor in England, Poland, South Korea and China. Since 2017 Barbara Szczepanska has also a teaching assignment at the Kalaidos Music University in Zürich, Switzerland.
Barbara Szczepanska is Artistic Director of the Robert Schumann Competition for Young Pianists in Düsseldorf, which takes place since 2017 every two years, last time in February 2023. First prizes of renowned piano competitions, gained by her students, document the pedagogical success of Barbara Szczepanska. Her students won important competitions like the ARD Competition Munich, the Queen Elisabeth Competition Brussels, the International Competition Leeds, the International Piano Competitions Johannes Sebastian Bach Leipzig, the Piano Competition for Young Pianists Ettlingen and the International Piano Competition Franz Liszt Weimar.
Barbara Szczepanska acted as a jury member in many international competitions like Liszt Competition Weimar, Dvarionas Competition Vilnius, Young Pianists Competition Ettlingen, Beethoven Competition Bonn.
