Born in Belgrade, Natasa Veljkovic lives and works in Vienna, where she holds an associate professorship for piano at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts.Ever since she was four, her life has centred around the piano. After her studies with Professor Arbo Valdma in Belgrade, at the age of 14 she was admitted, to Professor Paul Badura-Skoda’s class at the Vienna University of Music, where she graduated with honours in 1987. Further studies followed, with Professor Rudolf Firkusny at the Juilliard School in New York (1988-1989), with Professor Harry Datyner at the Geneva Conservatory (1990-1992), where she took her second master’s degree in the art of piano. She also held artistic consultations with Nikita Magaloff.Before she was ten, she won her first prizes at international youth competitions in Italy – Capua 1977 and Senigallia 1978.

Among the great number of further awards she has won for her extraordinary achievements as a pianist are the PRIX CLARA HASKIL (first and only prize) – one of the principal piano competitions – at Vevey in 1985, and the first prize at the WORLD MUSIC MASTERS in Paris in 1990. Many other awards followed, such as the Orlando Prize for the best concert at the Dubrovnik Festval, the UMUS Prize (Belgrade) for the most successful concert of the year.

The award of the PRIX CLARA HASKIL marked the beginning of intensive concert activities all over Europe: successful cooperation with the BELGRADE STRINGS “DUSAN SKOVRAN” (concert tours through Russia and China; publication in 2001 of a CD by the Belgrade label PGP-RTS with piano concertos by Bach, Haydn and Mendelssohn); with the St. GEORGES STRINGS in 2004 – live recording by PGP-RTS of three piano concertos by Mozart; with orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Tonhalle Zurich, the Zagreb Soloists, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Capella Istropolitana, the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava, Radio Katovice, the RAI orchestra, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra etc.

Many prominent conductors – such as David Zinman, Lawrence Foster, Dimitrij Kitajenko, Cristian Mandeal, Marcello Viotti, Antoni Wit, David Shalon, Emil Tabakov and Martin Sieghart – have greatly appreciated the collaboration with Natasa Veljkovic.

Another one of Natasa Veljkovic’s favourites is chamber music: she is a member of the “Anima” trio (Belgrade), and plays with the pianist Norman Shetler as well as with her husband, the cellist Tobias Stosiek.

In addition, she takes part in many European festivals: Montreux, Berlin, Chopin Festival (Poland), MIDEM classique at Cannes and JUVENTUS at Cambrai, Toulouse (France), Algarve (Portugal); and in Austria, festivals including the Carinthian Summer, Attergau Cultural Summer, International Chopin Festival at Gaming and Haydn Festival at Eisenstadt; and in the former Yugoslavia, the Dubrovnik Summer Festival (Croatia), BEMUS Belgrade and Novi Sad (Serbia); and the Mozart Festival in Istanbul, and many others.

Over the last few years, following two LPs in former Yugoslavia, she has recorded seven new CDs. Two of them (Liszt and Mozart) were recorded with the Vienna classical-music label ZULUS RECORDS VIENNA (world-wide sales). These received excellent international reviews, among them Karl Löbl (Kurier, Vienna), Peter Schlüer (Klassik Heute, Munich), Doris Glaser (ORF Ö1, Vienna) and Josef Manhart (BR 4, Munich). Another five were published by the leading Belgrade label PGP-RTS.
The focus of Natasa Veljkovic’s musical interest is works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.