Noa Leigh Kleisen

Founder & Artistic Director | Piano

Noa Leigh Kleisen (1992) was born in the Netherlands and started playing the piano at the age of nine. At age eleven she was admitted into the Sweelinck Academy; the Young Talent Class of the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where she studied with Marjes Benoist until 2009.

Noa has won several prizes including the first prize at the National Princess Christina competition and the second prize at the National YPF piano competition in Amsterdam.

Noa began her advanced studies at age seventeen in Paris as a private student of Jacques Rouvier. She went on to be admitted to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, where she obtained her Bachelors Degree in the class of Hubert Rutkowski. In 2020, she was awarded her Master’s Degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where she studied with Professor Lilya Zilberstein.

As of May 2021, she continues her performance studies with Professor Dina Yoffe.

Noa has performed all over Europe, in concert halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the großer Saal of Laieszhalle in Hamburg, and has made several appearances on Dutch National Television. She has played with numerous orchestras, including het Orkest van het Oosten and the Donetsk Symphony Orchestra, and has worked with conductors such as Vasily Petrenko and Uri Segal.

She has also participated in many international festivals and masterclasses, including with Franco Scala, Klaus Hellwig, Markus Groh, and Dmitry Bashkirov.

Noa is a passionate Chamber Music player and has recently formed a performing duo with violinist Djanay Tulenova. It is her passion for the Chamber Music genre that has inspired her to found the Joie de Vivre Festival, a project which she hopes will become a platform to enable like-minded young performers to share their passion with audiences.

©Andrej Grilc Photo