The twin sisters Ferhan & Ferzan Önder (born October 2, 1965, at Tokat, Turkey) are Turkish-Austrian pianists who perform mostly as a piano duo.

At the age of seven, they moved to Ankara to study in the State Conservatory. Already at the age of 14, they won a Jury Special Award at the Concorso Pianistico Internazionale Alessandro Casagrande in Terni, Italy.

Önder Sisters

Next, they won the "First Prize" at the International Piano Duo Competition in Hamburg, Germany. In 1985, after winning a competition, which led to a concert in Vienna, the twins decided to move to Austria, where they studied at the Academy of Music in Vienna with Noel Flores and Paul Badura-Skoda. In the academy, they also met Alfons Kontarsky, who became their mentor and a close friend until his death.

Önder Sisters

The twin sisters produced a number of CDs. Their CD Vivaldi Reflections, which had been released under the label EMI Records in 2001, won the "Echo Klassik Prize" of the German Phono Academy. Their next CD was 1001 Nights (EMI, 2003) with adaptations of Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Balakirev and Mozart.

Önder Sisters

In 2003, they were appointed UNICEF goodwill ambassadors.

References

Living people

1965 births

People from Tokat

Identical twin females

Turkish twins

Hacettepe University Ankara State Conservatory alumni

University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna alumni

Twin musical duos

Turkish classical pianists

Turkish women pianists

Women classical pianists

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors

20th-century classical pianists

21st-century classical pianists

20th-century Turkish women musicians

21st-century Turkish women musicians

Female musical duos

Austrian people of Turkish descent

Turkish emigrants to Austria

Naturalised citizens of Austria

20th-century women pianists

21st-century women pianists

Sibling musical duos