Tjasha Gafner

© Daniel Delang

Tjasha Gafner

Tjasha Gafner, harpist born in 1999 in Switzerland, graduated from the Juilliard School in New York under the guidance of Nancy Allen. She earned a Master Soloist degree as well under Letizia Belmondo at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Lausanne.

In September 2023, Tjasha won the 1st prize and the audience prize at the prestigious ARD Competition in Munich. She holds more than 20 awards and has won 1st prizes at competitions such as the Felix Godefroid Competition (Belgium, 2012), Suoni d'Arpa (Italy, 2014), and the Martine Géliot Competition (France, 2016). In 2021, she was awarded "Soloist 2022" at the MFP (Médias Francophones Publics) Competition, won the Max D. Jost Prize, and received the Leenaards Cultural Grant. In 2023, she was recognized as one of the 30 influential personalities under 30 in Germany by Die Zeit.

Since the age of 10, Tjasha has regularly performed in recitals across Europe in renowned venues such as Tonhalle Zürich and the Konzerthaus in Vienna. She has been invited to perform as a soloist with orchestras including the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Ensemble des Jeunes Virtuoses de New York, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne, and the London Mozart Players.

She has been featured on Swiss Radio and Television, BR-Klassik, and France Musique, and recorded her first CD at the age of 18. In 2021, she recorded two more albums in collaboration with flutist Héléna Macherel, the first released by the American label Orpheus Classical and the second by Claves. In 2022, she conducted her first masterclass during a solo tour in Argentina. In 2023, she travelled to Congo to perform, teach, and build instruments from waste.

Since 2020, Tjasha has been working with the theatre company 2B Company, frequently touring in French-speaking countries. She contributes to expanding the harp repertoire by creating her own transcriptions and collaborating with composers such as Constantin Macherel, Ziyi Tao, Jake Safirstein, and Laurent Coulomb, who have dedicated works to her.