Francisca Skoogh

Senior Lecturer in Piano

Francisca Skoogh made her debut at the age of 13 with the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra and has since established herself as one of Sweden´s foremost concert pianists. She was the recipient of the prestigious ”Premier Prix” in both chamber music and piano at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris and the Soloist Diploma at The Royal Danish Music Conservatoire. Francisca has been awarded the soloist prize in Stockholm as well as second prize at the Michelangeli Competition in Italy.

Francisca´s recordings have received rave reviews and can be found on Spotify and Youtube.

Francisca Skoogh is a frequent guest at both national and international music festivals and as a soloist she appears regularly with several of the Swedish orchestras and she has co-operated with conductors such as Heinz Wallberg, Ruth Reinhardt, Susanna Mälkki, Gianandrea Noseda, Michail Jurowski and Pinchas Steinberg. During recent years she has had a close cooperation with conductor Leif Segerstam with concertos by Brahms, Beethoven and Rachmaninov. Francisca has performed together with several of Sweden’s foremost musicians and has premiered various works by contemporary composers. She has ongoing collaborations with composer Staffan Storm and Royal Court Singer Anna Larsson, alto, among others.

Francisca is a teacher at the Academy of Music in Malmö, Lund University and has a PhD in Artistic Research. Her thesis is focused on the pianist on stage; the traditions and ceremonies of classical performance, such as the piano recital, and how they affect her as a performer.

Link to the thesis

From 2008-2019 she also worked as a clinical psychologist in fields such as primary health care and pain rehabilitation. She has used psychological theory, her clinical experience as psychologist and her experience as an artist in courses and lectures such as ”The Performing Human Being”. She is the founder of the crossdisciplinary Performance Centre at Malmö Academy, focusing on psychological factors during musical learning and performance. 

https://www.mhm.lu.se/en/education/programmes-and-courses/performance-programmes-music-masters-level/performance-centre?q=education/programmes-and-courses/performance-programmes-in-music-masters-level/performance-centre

In 2018 she was elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

The press:
Her playing is big-boned, grandly sculptured, with taut rhythmic control and a rich sound.
Tim Parry, Gramophone

A pianist worth watching!
Jed Distler, Classical Music