MEET OUR 2022 JUDGES
Grand Final Judges
Enrico Elisi regularlyperforms to acclaim throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Hailed for his “mastery of elegance, refinement, and fantasy” (La Nueva España), his interpretations reveal “remarkable sensitivity, imagination, and polish” (Baltimore Sun).
A laureate of the Porto International Competition (Portugal) and the Venice Competition (Italy), he went on to garner a considerable number of first prizes and successes in Italian competitions and has performed recitals in Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the Slovak Republic. Selected as a Le Gesse Fellow, Elisi performed in France and New York Weill Recital Hall.
In Italy, he has appeared in historical settings (La Fenice Theatre, Venice; Palazzo Vecchio, Florence; Bibiena Theatre, Mantua; Pavarotti Opera House, Modena; Teatro Comunale and Sala Bossi, Bologna; Sala dei Giganti, Padua; Sant’Anna dei Lombardi Church, Naples, as well as the Amalfi Cathedral). In addition, he has given recitals in several countries in Asia, including South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Recent recital engagements include the Banff Centre for the Arts, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, the New York Public and Morgan libraries, the Italian Embassy and National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and the Centro Cultural de España in Lima, Peru.
Enrico Elisi has made numerous appearances as a soloist with the Florence Symphony (Italy); Orchestra Classica de Porto (Portugal); Bay Atlantic Symphony, Greeley Philharmonic, Williamsport Symphony, Pennsylvania Centre, Penn State Philharmonic, Penn’s Woods, UNLV Chamber, and Johns Hopkins Symphony orchestras (USA). He debuted as a soloist/conductor with the Green Valley Festival Chamber Orchestra. He recently performed Beethoven Concerto No. 4 with the Jakarta Sinfonietta (Indonesia) and Mendelssohn Concerto in E Major for two pianos with Anton Nel (USA) and the Central Texas Philharmonic.
Among Mr. Elisi’s T.V. broadcasts are the Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (Brahms Concerto No. 1 with the Orchestra Clássica do Porto) and WPSU (USA). Other live and recorded performances appeared on radio stations such as Montebeni Classica FM (Italy), WCLV Cleveland, UNC, KCNV Nevada Public Radio, and KGCS (USA). In addition, the German radio, Via Classica, programmed a two-hour broadcast of Elisi’s live recital and subsequent interview from Hamburg.
A Yellowbarn Festival Artist-in-Residence, Elisi performed a recital and engaged the community by disseminating his work on ornamentations and articulations in selected works by Bach. He subsequently recorded selected Partitas and Preludes (the release of which is forthcoming). Previous recordings include an album dedicated to Mozart and Two Images by Paul Chihara, featured on Albany Records.
An avid chamber musician, Elisi has performed at the Taos and Ravinia Festivals, collaborated with the New Orford String Quartet, and principal players from the Baltimore, Chicago, and American Symphony Orchestras. Among the numerous partnerships, he also performed with violinists Joan Joan Kwuon, Lorenz Gamma, Charles Castleman, Qian Zhou, Federico Agostini (former leader of I Musici), and violist Juan-Miguel Hernandez (former member of the Fine Arts Quartet).
During Salvatore Sciarrino’s residence at the University of Toronto New Music Festival, Elisi performed works by Fedele, Berio, and Sciarrino. He also premiered chamber music by Kye Ryung Park and Paul Chihara at Weill Hall and Pastorale Reveries (his latest piano work dedicated to Elisi) in Canada. Other commissions and premieres by living composers of diverse nationalities testify to Elisi’s eclectic taste — his repertoire ranging from the seventeenth century to world premieres of contemporary music.
A frequent guest at leading music festivals, Elisi appears regularly in such settings as Cincinnati “Art of the Piano,” Montecito, Lee University, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Texas State University festivals, and the Chautauqua Institution (USA); Valencia International Performance Academy and Festival (Spain); Todi Music Masters, Associazione Umbria classica, Amalfi Coast Festival and AmiCa Fest (Italy); Ameri-China Foundation and Sichuan International Piano Festival (China).
A sought-after pedagogue, Enrico Elisi was a featured conference artist performer at the Florida and Oklahoma Music Teachers Association State Conferences and performed for the American Liszt Society Festivals at Northwestern University and the University of Georgia (during the Lisztian bicentennial anniversary). Moreover, he presented hundreds of masterclasses, both in conjunction with his performing engagements, at Northwestern University, Boston University, Cincinnati College-Conservatory, Temple University, the University of Michigan (USA); Taylor Academy, University of British Columbia, University of Western Ontario (Canada); National Conservatory of Lima (Peru); Royal Academy (Denmark); Accademia delle Marche (Italy); Taipei National University of the Arts (Taiwan); China Conservatory, Shanghai and Xinghai conservatories (China); Academy of Performing Arts, Hong Kong; Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, Singapore; Jakarta Conservatory, Indonesia; Seoul National, Yonsei, Hanyang, Ewha Woman’s, as well as most other major universities in Korea.
Currently, on the piano faculty at the University of Toronto, Dr. Elisi received the distinguished Faculty of Music Teaching Award (Appointed Faculty) in recognition of his excellence, commitment, and innovation in teaching. Previous teaching positions spanning nearly two decades include the Eastman School, Hanyang University, the Pennsylvania State University, and UNLV.
His current and former students are prizewinners in competitions such as Cleveland, Paderewski, Washington, Louisiana, San Antonio, and New Orleans. They hold teaching posts in the U.S. and abroad; performed with various orchestras (Cleveland Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and Dallas Chamber Symphony, among others). Some gave debut recitals from New York to Caracas, Paris, and Seoul, garnered fellowships and scholarships at summer programs, and entered prestigious Artist Diploma (Rice University, Glenn Gould School, among others) and other graduate programs in prestigious institutions in the U.S. and abroad.
As an adjudicator, he has been on the jury of several competitions: the Ameri-China Foundation Competition (China); the Stepping Stone, CMC finals, RCM’s Glenn Gould School Concerto, Fred Pattison Award, Toronto-Calgary-Vancouver Steinway (Canada); the Peabody Yale Gordon, Iowa, Julia Crane, Fite Young Artist, SMU Concerto and Dallas International, Texas State International Piano Competition as well as the Nevada, Maryland, Virginia, and Texas State Music Teachers Associations’ (USA); the Pacific Rim competition (Australia and New Zealand). Finally, he chaired Osimo’s Nuova Coppa Pianisti (2013) and Palma d’Oro (2021) in Italy.
Dr. Elisi holds degrees from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Before immigrating to the United States in 1996, he graduated from the Conservatory of Florence and the International Piano Academy of Imola. His primary teachers include Leon Fleisher (with whom, at his invitation, he felt honored to share the stage at the 2007 World Piano Pedagogy Conference), Lazar Berman, Boris Petrushansky, Alexander Lonquich, Franco Scala, and Giuseppe Fricelli.
Born in Italy and presently living in Canada with his spouse, composer Kye Ryung Park, Enrico Elisi became a citizen of the United States of America in 2012 and is an official Steinway Artist.
More information about Enrico Elisi can be found on the web at www.enricoelisipiano.com.
He also invites his audience to interact with him on Instagram and “like” his page at www.facebook.com/enricoelisipiano.
American pianist Robert McDonald has performed throughout the United States, Europe,
Latin America and Asia as solo recitalist and, for many years, as recital partner to Isaac Stern
and other distinguished instrumentalists. He has appeared with the San Francisco, Baltimore
and Curtis symphony orchestras as well as with the Orquestra Sinfonica Nacional in Costa Rica
and the Orchestra Sinfonica Haydn di Bolzano e Trento in Italy.
As a chamber musician, he has performed with the Juilliard, American, Takács, Muir, Brentano,
St. Lawrence, Vermeer, Borromeo, Shanghai, and Orion string quartets, and has given concerts
for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Chicago Chamber Musicians and NHK and
BBC television worldwide. His discography includes recordings for Sony Classical, Vox, Bridge,
Musical Heritage Society, ASV and CRI.
McDonald is a member of the piano faculties at The Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of
Music, where he holds the Penelope P. Watkins Chair in piano studies. In addition to being the
artistic director of the Taos School of Music and Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico, he has
participated in the Bergen, Lucerne and Salzburg festivals in Europe, the Four Seasons,
Marlboro and Brevard festivals in the United States, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, as well as at
the Banff Center in Canada and the Music Academy of the West.
McDonald is the winner of the Gold Medal at the Busoni International Competition and the
Deutsche Schallplatten Critics Award. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the
Manhattan School of Music in 2018.
Accomplished pianist and teacher Yong Hi Moon made her solo debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at age 10 as winner of the National Korean Broadcasting Competition. Ms. Moon has won top prizes in the Elena-Rombro Stepanow Competition in Vienna, the Viotti International Competition in Vercelli, Italy, the Vienna da Motta Competition in Lisbon, Portugal, and also received the Chopin Prize from the Geneva International Competition in Switzerland.
Ms. Moon performs extensively throughout Asia, Europe and the US as recitalist and soloist, having appeared with the Korean National Symphony and the Osaka, Seoul, and Tokyo Philharmonics.
To celebrate Mozart’s bicentennial year in 1991, she participated in a cycle of the composer’s complete piano concerti with the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1997, Ms. Moon undertook the complete solo piano works of Schubert, performing them in six recitals in both Korea and the US. The summer of 2000 marked her first extensive concert tour of Korea, which included solo recitals in five cities.
In addition, she performed with all the major orchestras in Korea and participates regularly in such summer festivals as Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Art of piano in Cincinnati among others.
Ms. Moon is in high demand as a guest master class teacher and adjudicator. In 1993, she released a popular teaching video in Korea entitled Artistic Piano Playing. In addition, she is a frequent visitor to Beijing where she regularly gives master classes at the China Conservatory as well as the Middle School of the Central Conservatory.
She has served on the juries of the CCC Toronto International Piano Competition, Senigallia International Piano Competition in Italy, Gilmore International Piano Competition, Gina Bachauer International Competition, the Virginia Waring International as well as numerous MTNA competitions throughout the US. She has also served as a screening judge in the William Kapell and the Hilton Head International Competition. In March of 2014, she chaired the jury at Seoul International Piano Competition.
Ms. Moon was a professor of piano at Michigan State University School of Music for fifteen years, and since 2002 she has been
a professor of piano at Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
Ms. Moon studied at the Vienna Academy, graduating with the highest honors. She continued her studies in London before pursuing an Artist Diploma at Indiana University in Bloomington. Her major teachers include Dieter Weber, Maria Curcio, György Sebok, Leon Fleisher, Wilhelm Kempff and Fou T’song, who have always been inspirations in her work.
Grand Final and Final Round Judges
“A compelling, sparkling virtuoso” (Boston Music Intelligencer), pianist Michelle Cann made her orchestral debut at age fourteen and has since performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
A champion of the music of Florence Price, Ms. Cann performed the New York City premiere of the composer’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with The Dream Unfinished Orchestra in July 2016 and the Philadelphia premiere with The Philadelphia Orchestra in February 2021, which the Philadelphia Inquirer called “exquisite.”
Highlights of her 2021–22 season include debut performances with the Atlanta, Detroit, and St. Louis symphony orchestras, as well as her Canadian concert debut with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. She also receives the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the Sphinx Organization, and the 2022 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. Embracing a dual role as both performer and pedagogue, her season includes teaching residencies at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and the National Conference of the Music Teachers National Association.
Ms. Cann regularly appears in solo and chamber recitals throughout the U.S., China,and South Korea. Notable venues include the NationalCentre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), and the Barbican (London). She has also appeared as cohost and collaborative pianist with NPR’sFrom The Top.
An award winner at top international competitions, in 2019 she served as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s MAC Music Innovator in recognition of her role as an African-American classical musician who embodies artistry, innovation, and a commitment to education and community engagement.
Ms. Cann studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music, where she holds the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies.
A laureate of the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, Ukrainian-born pianist Inesa Sinkevych has also won first prizes in the Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona and the Concurso Internacional de Piano Premio “Jaén” in Spain, as well as awards in the Minnesota International Yamaha Piano-e-Competition; the Vianna da Motta and the Porto international competitions in Portugal; the Casagrande International Competition in Italy; the Panama International Competition; and the Cidade del Ferrol and Spanish Composers competitions in Spain. Inesa Sinkevych has been praised for her “intense, thrilling and sophisticated playing” (General-Anzeiger, Germany), “brilliant note-perfect fluency” (New York Concert Review), “grand passion and elegant lyricism” (Audiophile Audition), and “rich cantabile” (Ritmo, Spain). She has been described as a “Schubertian of real distinction,” with a “maturity that belies her age (Music Web International), and as an “artist with intuition that knows to look far beyond technique” (Diario de Noticias, Lisbon). “Grasping the overarching structure and purpose,” writes JWR Review, “is Sinkevych’s strength.”
As soloist she has appeared with the Israel Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, Orquesta Nacional del Cuba, the Gran Canaria Philharmonic of Spain, the Porto Symphony of Portugal, the Tenerife Symphony of the Canary Islands, the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra, and the Kharkov Youth Orchestra, among others. She has performed as recitalist, chamber player, and orchestral soloist at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, the Purcell Room in London’s Royal Festival Hall, the Minnesota Orchestra Hall, the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, the Hong Kong City Hall, Guanghualu Arts Center in Beijing, Joaquin Rodrigo Auditorium in Madrid, the National Philharmonic Hall of Ukraine, and the Great Hall of the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon. Recent performances include appearances at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Bar Harbor Music Festival, Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, Festival de El Valle de Anton in Panama, and with the Orquesta Mozartiano de la Habana in Cuba, as well as in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenyang, and Guangzhoua in China on tour. Inesa Sinkevych appeared live on WFMT Chicago, Kol Israel, Classical WETA Washington, the RDP Portugal, Minnesota Public Radio, and Mezzo Classic TV Channel, France. She performed at the Israeli Presidential Conference (2008) in Jerusalem for U.S. President G.W. Bush and Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Inesa Sinkevych is guest faculty at the Interharmony (Italy), Euroarts (Halle, Germany), Manhattan in the Mountains (Catskills, NY), Summit (New York), and Forum Musicae (Madrid, Spain) summer festivals. A judge for the Junior Peace and Music Ambassador Competition and head of the jury for the International Shostakovich Piano Competition in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, she also serves as visiting faculty at the FaceArt Music School in Shanghai and as an honorary advisor to the Leaves Music School in Nanjing, China.
Inesa Sinkevych began her piano studies at the Kharkov Special Music School in her native Ukraine with Victor Makarov and later studied with Alexander Volkov at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. A scholarship from the America–Israel Cultural Foundation enabled her to further her studies with Solomon Mikowsky in the United States, where she received her Master of Music degree at the Chicago College of Performing Arts and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Manhattan School of Music. Dr. Sinkevych has been a member of the Piano faculty of Manhattan School of Music’s College Division since 2014 and Precollege Division since 2008.
Praised by the New York Times as a pianist with “assurance and vitality,” Alan Woo made his Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall performing with the Juilliard Orchestra under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He has since collaborated with conductors Daniel Hege, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and Tito Muñoz in solo appearances with the Houston and Fort Worth Symphonies, and the Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra. Other recent performances include solo recital engagements throughout the US, Europe, and Asia.
Woo has been featured on The McGraw Hill Financial Young Artists Showcase broadcasted on WQXR in New York and has performed in venues such as Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel Recital Halls. An avid chamber musician, he has made appearances at the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and Juilliard’s ChamberFest. Other accolades include prizes at the High Point University, Ima Hogg, Iowa and Juilliard’s Gina Bachauer piano competitions.
Born in Arlington, Virginia, Woo is a graduate of The Juilliard School and Peabody Conservatory where he completed degrees in piano performance under Robert McDonald and Yong Hi Moon. He currently teaches at the University of Georgia as Lecturer in Piano, having previously held positions at Elizabeth City State University and Peabody Institute.
Final Round Judges
“Mr. Berkovsky is quiet and unassuming in demeanor and simply settled down at the piano to play several of the great masterworks of the repertoire. He was in all ways a servant of the music and gave us a performance that was nothing less than astonishing” – Southampton Times
Canadian-Israeli pianist, Dr. Michael Berkovsky, made his New York debut at the David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center and has toured as soloist in Ireland, Japan, Italy, Israel, Canada, the United States and Costa Rica; as well as performed under the baton of Vladimir Feltsman, Stefan Sanderling, Leon Fleisher and William Noll. Michael won numerous international awards and regularly collaborates with chamber groups and award winning musicians. He was a guest artist at many international festivals, including Arts Naples where he collaborated with Russian pianist Pavel Narcessian, and Music Niagara Festival. He frequents the cultural scene of his community in Toronto and has performed with Kindred Spirit Orchestra, York Symphony Orchestra and many others.
A passionate and dedicated music educator as well as a highly sought after piano teacher, Dr. Berkovsky is on the faculty of the Glenn Gould School and the Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists, at the Canadian Royal Conservatory of Music. He also maintains a private studio in which a number of his students have placed highly in provincial, national and international competitions. Additionally, Michael is a board member of the Canadian Music Competition as well as an advisor on the Artistic Committee of the Chinese Cultural Center Music Festival.
He was a recipient of the America Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarships from 1994-2001. On the recommendation from Maestro Valery Gergiev, Michael was awarded the White Nights Foundation Scholarships while studying at The Juilliard School.
Born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to Israel in 1990, Michael has studied with Nataly Litvinova and was mentored by Alexander Slobodyanik. In 2001, his family moved to Toronto, Canada. He received his Bachelor and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Julian Martin. In 2011, he completed his Doctoral degree at the Peabody Conservatory of the John Hopkins University under the tutelage of Professor Yong Hi Moon.
Described as “dazzling” and “scintillating” (Classical Source) and lauded for her “beautiful singing lines” and performances filled with “drama and energy” (Joan Tower), pianist Emiko Edwards continues to captivate audiences with her sincere musical interpretations and wide variety of tonal color.
Edwards’s international performing career has taken her across North America, Europe, and Asia, where she has had the pleasure of appearing in the Gijon International Piano Festival, Banff Summer Music Festival, and Barbican Centre’s Sound Unbound Festival, as well as in major concert venues such as Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall), Merkin Concert Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Milton Court Concert Hall. A champion of modern music and composers of our day, Edwards holds a number of BBC credits to her name. Her performances of works by Gorecki and Richard Rodney Bennett have received international acclaim and have all been recorded for and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Additional highlights include the Philadelphia premier of the Joan Tower Piano Concerto (Homage to Beethoven) and the American premier of an original composition by Karen Lefrak at the David H. Koch Theater in collaboration with members of the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Equally at home with both modern and standard repertoire, concerto engagements include those with the Guildhall Brass Ensemble, Cambridge Graduate Orchestra, Bravura Philharmonic, Temple University Symphony, Manalapan Battleground Symphony, New Sussex Symphony, and Westfield Symphony Orchestras.
In addition to airtime in the UK, footage of Edwards’s performances and interviews have been broadcast on television and radio throughout the United States. She is featured in two documentaries, On a Personal Note and “Piano Forte”: The Julia Crane International Piano Competition, both which have aired nationally on PBS. She has won numerous awards at both the national and international level, taking prizes at the France Music Competition, Bachauer Scholarship Competition, Princeton Festival International Piano Competition, Cape Vincent International Piano Competition, Julia Crane International Piano Competition, 5 Towns Music & Art Foundation Competition, the 18(th) International Young Artist Competition (Washington, D.C.), and The New York International Piano Competition, and has been the recipient of numerous grants and scholarships (Linklaters, James Gibb, Banff Centre, Orford Arts Centre) for which she is eternally grateful. Edwards returns regularly to the UK to work with Nelly Ben-Or courtesy of the Nelly Ben-Or Trust (est. Sir Colin Davies) to study the in-depth relationship between piano playing and the Alexander Technique and has been chosen to appear in master classes with esteemed pedagogues such as Steven Kovacevich, Marc Durand, Robert McDonald, Andre Michel Schub, Joseph Kalichstein, Jerome Lowenthal, Robert Levin, John Perry, and Jacques Rouvier.
An avid advocate for outreach and community Edwards has organized and curated concerts throughout New York City and Philadelphia. Examples of this include her work as the artistic director of The Five Boroughs Performing Arts Series (2011-2012), a concert series put on in partnership with the Boys Club of New York, and as a convener of “She Persisted-Women in Music, Then and Now,” a full day symposium on women composers, in partnership with Paley Library and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program at Temple University. Passionate about cultivating the next generation of musicians, Edwards is in high demand as both an educator and adjudicator. She has taught and mentored students at Temple University and The Juilliard School, and currently teaches piano performance and chamber music at Saint Joseph’s University. She is also head of the piano department at Luzerne Music Center. A summer music program for bourgeoning young musicians, Luzerne regularly hosts world-renown guest artists and composers such as Midori, Leonard Slatkin, Bruce Brubeck, John Corigliano, George Crumb, and Joan Tower.
Edwards was awarded her degrees from The Juilliard School (B.M.), Guildhall School of Music and Drama (MPerf, Artist Diploma), and Temple University (D.M.A), where she studied with Julian Martin, Ronan O’Hora, Sara Davis Buechner, and Lambert Orkis.
Korean-American pianist Sherry Kim has performed in the United States, Canada, Germany, Panama, and South Africa. She has made concert appearances in notable venues including Carnegie Hall, Chicago Cultural Center, Liederkranz Hall, Kennedy Center, and The Smith Center. Her journey through Frederic Chopin’s music has landed her an orchestral performance of Chopin’s Concerto No. 2 with the Miami Music Festival Symphony Orchestra in July 2019, an all-Chopin recital in New York City, 2nd prizes at the Chopin International Competitions in Hartford, Connecticut (2016) and Corpus Christi, Texas (2020), and was one of 26 contestants in the 10th National Chopin Piano Competition in Miami, Florida. She graduated from Manhattan School of Music, studying under Alexandre Moutouzkine, with a Professional Studies certificate (May 2017) and with a Master of Music degree (May 2016). Previously, she graduated from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music with a Bachelor of Music under Alan Chow. In addition to performing, Sherry founded the Sherry Kim Piano Studio in 2017 and is teaching a full studio of private students in NJ and NYC.
Chinese concert pianist Brian Yuebing Lin enjoys a career of high-profile performances across four continents. Describing his performance skill set, the renowned pianist Matti Raekallio hails Lin as “a tremendous virtuoso with an appealing richness of musical imagination and a performer’s courage that immediately captures the listener.”
Mr. Lin gained national attention as one of only 20 young artists in the United States to receive the $100,000 Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Arts Award. Since then, he has taken the international piano scene by storm, enjoying a career that has taken him to performances across the United States, China, Canada, Korea, France, Australia, and Russia. The world’s renowned chamber music festivals have hosted Lin, including the Taos School of Music, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Four Seasons Winter Workshop. Furthermore, the world’s top pianists have shared the stage with Mr. Lin in masterclasses, including Stephen Hough, Leon Fleisher, Murray Perahia, Richard Goode, and Robert Levin.
An accomplished veteran on the piano competitive circuit, Mr. Lin has earned first-prize finishes at both the Virginia Waring as well as the Lennox International Piano Competitions, and took a top-four finish in the Hilton Head International Competition. In the multi-instrumental realm, he took Third Prize in the Houston Symphony’s Ima Hogg International Competition, for which he was featured in the Houston Chronicle.
In addition to competitions, Mr. Lin has also performed as orchestral soloist, making his concerto debut with the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra in Fort Myers, Florida. Other engagements have included performances with the Houston Symphony as well as the Richardson Symphony Orchestra in Dallas, Texas under the baton of maestro Anshel Brusilow, former concertmaster of The Philadelphia Orchestra.
Moreover, he is a frequent judge of competitions hosted by the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). He is also a visiting lecturer at various universities.
Brian Lin is currently based in New York, NY while pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. He is from Shenzhen, China, where he was a student of piano from the age of 4. He moved to the United States at 15 years old, where he attended high school in Fort Worth, TX before moving to New York, where he earned his Bachelor and Master of Music Diplomas from The Juilliard School.
He is grateful to his primary teachers, who include Yong Hi Moon, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Joseph Kalichstein, Matti Raekallio, Tamas Ungar, Eleanor Wong, Zhaoyi Dan, Ping Li, and Walter Gui.
Acclaimed for “exquisite clarity” and “remarkable virtuosity”, Korean-American pianist Sun-A Park is quickly establishing herself as one of the exciting pianists of her generation. Since making her orchestral debut with the New Jersey and Houston Symphony Orchestras, Ms. Park has performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel, Manuel de Falla Auditorium in Spain, Bass Hall in Fort Worth, Texas, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and the Juilliard Theater in New York. As an active soloist and recitalist, shehas collaborated with such eminent conductors as Peter Oundjian, Eiji Oue, Arthur Hagen, and Krzysztof Urbanski. Ms. Park has performed with the Yale Philharmonia, Albany Symphony, Sendai City Orchestra in Japan, San Marino Republic Orchestra, Orchester Haydn in Italy, Hannover Hochschulorchester in Germany, Symphonic Orchestra of Castilla y León and Orquesta Ciudad de Granada in Spain. Ms. Park has been heard on recital series throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, making appearances in Horowitz Recital Series at Yale University, Stecher and Horowitz Foundation, Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut in Germany, Pusan National University and Performing Arts Center in South Korea, among many others. Ms. Park is a first prize winner of the Olga and SergeKoussevitzky Young Artists Awards and the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition. Her other accomplishments include second prize and the Rosa Sabater award for best interpretation of Spanish music at the 2019 Jaén International Piano Competition (Spain), and majorprizes at the 5th International SendaiMusic Competition (Japan), the 58th Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition (Italy), and the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition. As aperiod-keyboard music lover, Sun-A has performed in fortepiano masterclasses with fortepianists Alexander Lubimov and Kristian Bezuidenhout at the Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments. Her performances on the fortepiano werefeatured at Virtuoso e Belcanto Festival in Lucca, Italy and the Peabody Institute. Sun-A’s research topics during her residency at Peabody included development of keyboard technique in 18th-century English fortepiano school. Ms. Parkwas born in Busan, South Korea and grew up in New Jersey. She began to play the piano at the age of four and later studied with Seymour Bernstein of New York University. Ms. Parkcompleted herundergraduate and graduate studies with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Matti Raekallioat the Juilliard School. In 2014, Ms. Parkreceived the Soloklasse Programm diploma in Hannover, Germany with Bernd Goetzke. She is the recipient of Elizabeth Parisot Piano Award for the most outstanding pianist at the Yale School of Music under the tutelage of Boris Berman. After receiving her Doctor of Musical Arts degree, Ms. Park is an adjunct faculty of keyboard studies at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Her recording ofearly keyboard sonatas by Muzio Clementiwasreleased under the Naxos label in July 2019.
Praised by the New York Times for his “revelatory” performances, pianist Jiayan Sun has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the Chinese and RTÉ National Symphony Orchestras, the Fort Worth and Toledo Symphony Orchestras, the Toronto and Aspen Concert Orchestras, and the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra.
In addition to capturing major prizes in the Leeds, Cleveland, Dublin, and Toronto international piano competitions, playing early keyboard instruments and studying historical performance practice have played a significant role in Mr. Sun’s musical activities, with critically acclaimed appearances with the American Classical Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall.
Hailing from Yantai, China, Mr. Sun received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Yoheved Kaplinsky and Stephen Hough. Currently Assistant Professor of Music and the Associate Chair in Performance Activities at Smith College, he performed Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas in chronological order in a series of eight recitals, in addition to presenting recital series devoted to the works of Schubert and Chopin.
As the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung Heidelberger described, “Shijun Wang is a fascinating, serious and sensitive musician” As a solo pianist and orchestral soloist, Shijun Wang has performed in California, Pennsylvania, New York, Oklahoma, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Utah, Idaho, Connecticut, New Jersey, as well as Germany, France, Norway, Spain, China, Mexico, Korea, and Japan. In his most recent China tour, he gave master classes, lectures and recitals in more than half of the major Chinese conservatories includes Shenyang Conservatory, Xi’an Conservatory, Sichuan Conservatory and Jilin College of Arts. He was appointed as visiting professor of Xi’an Conservatory where he would give concerts and master classes for two months each summer starting from 2017.
His recent orchestral appearances include the Rachmaninoff “Rhapsody On a Theme of Paganini” with the Lafayette Symphony, Beethoven Piano Concerto No.2 with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Evening Stars Orchestra; Duxbury Music Festival Orchestra; Manhattan Chamber Orchestra; Music Academy of the West Orchestra; Tulsa Signature Symphony Orchestra.
He has won many national and international prizes of piano performances, including the Excellence Award in the 65th Steinway Children and Young pianist Competition 2002. He subsequently won the Excellence award of the 8th Germany Ettlingen International Competition for Young Pianists in 2002. The same year he won the Bronze medal at the Hong Kong Tchaikovsky Piano Competition. In 2008, he won the fifth prize in the Hamamatsu Piano Academy. In 2010, he won the first prize and the audience prize in Crescendo Piano Competition.
Professor Wang currently an assistant professor of piano at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He also worked at Weber State University where he taught piano major students, music theory, collaborative piano, and chamber music. Professor Wang got his early music training in Shenyang, China. He began learning piano at the age of four. In 1999 he was accepted into the Music High School of the Shenyang Conservatory of Music and studied with Professor Dong-Dun Zhang. He received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School studied with Oxana Yablonskaya and Joseph Kalichstein. He also completed his Doctoral of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music under the guidance of Nelita True. His musical mentors have also included Thomas Schumacher, Dan-Wen Wei, Alfred Brendel, Emanuel Ax, and Richard Goode.
A native of Shanghai, China, Qi Zhang started learning piano at the age of 3. From an early age, Zhang’s music talent was apparent. At the age of 8, Zhang was selected into the prestigious Shanghai Music Middle School affiliated to Shanghai Music Conservatory, in which Zhang was the only piano student being accepted from Shanghai that year. Zhang has won numerous competition prizes both in China and in the state, including the China National Piano Competition, The US Open Piano Competition and The Julia Crane International Piano Competition.
As a music educator and entrepreneur, Zhang founded Musart Music in 2018 with the commitment to build the best early stage music education for the next generation of classical musicians. Under Zhang’s guidance and leadership, the dedication of Musart faculty and staff, Musart Music has reached close to 400 students in just over 4 years, and helped many students win competitions and enroll into top music programs in the country such as Juilliard Pre-college.
Zhang studied with Ms. Victoria Mushkatkol in Juilliard Pre-college, and continued his study with great American Pianist Mr. Jerome Lowenthal in Juilliard for his bachelor’s degree. Later Zhang attended Yale School of Music for his Master Degree under the study of pianist Hung-Kuan Chen.
*Judges may be substituted without prior notice.
