Shani Diluka

Pianist Shani Diluka has collected an exceptional array of distinctions for her recordings of Romantic and post-Romantic works, while also devoting attention to contemporary scores.

Born in Monaco on November 7, 1976, to parents of Sri Lankan origin, she gained entry as a child to an initiative launched by Princess Grace that integrated specialized music instruction into the ordinary school day for gifted youngsters. She attended the Académie de Musique maintained by the Fondation Prince Rainier III, where she earned a first prize, and studied under Odile Poisson before entering the Conservatoire de Paris in 1997. There her principal instructors were Georges Pludermacher and François-Frédéric Guy, although she also worked with Marie-Françoise Bucquet, Nicholas Angelich, and Bruno Rigutto, receiving yet another first prize upon completion of her studies. Additional training came from several leading pianists, foremost among them Leon Fleisher, whom she regards as both a musical and philosophical guide; she likewise collaborated with Maria João Pires, Menahem Pressler, and Murray Perahia, and in 2005 joined Martha Argerich at the Lake Como Piano Academy.

Her recital engagements have included appearances at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Ravinia Festival in the Chicago area. Diluka’s debut recording, Concertos et Pièces Lyriques de Grieg, appeared on the Mirare label in 2007, earning five-star notices and multiple prizes, among them France’s CHOC du monde de la musique. Subsequent Mirare releases continued this pattern of critical recognition, one of them being the largely American program Road 66; she later accompanied singer-narrator Natalie Dessay on the children’s Christmas disc Babar et le père Noël.

Maintaining ties to the musical traditions of the Indian subcontinent, Diluka released her first Warner Classics album, Cosmos, in 2020; the project merged Beethoven’s music with Indian ragas and drew upon the documented fact that Beethoven knew the first German translation of the Hindu Upanishads, published in 1816. The following year she issued The Proust Album, devoted to works admired by novelist Marcel Proust, timed ahead of the centenary of his death in 1922. Beyond her pianistic activities, Diluka is also recognized as a poet and has received honors from the Académie Française.