Press Release

PianoArts 2010 North American Piano Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Milwaukee, Wisconsin - May 17, 2010

Contact: Sue Medford, 414.962.3055

Info@PianoArts.org • www.PianoArts.org

Twelve extraordinary young pianists from across the U. S. have been selected through a rigorous screening process to compete for over $20,000 in prizes, scholarships, fellowships, and performance opportunities in PianoArts’ biennial international piano competition and festival at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, 1584 North Prospect Avenue, and Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, 19805 West Capitol Drive, June 3-9.

This year’s competition for pianists, ages 15-20, includes a music festival featuring master classes and a recital by the judges, a recital by 2008 winner Sejoon Park, and special performances by the twelve semifinalists selected to compete this year. Tickets range from $10 to $30 and can be purchased by calling 414-962-3055 (or 262-781-9520 for Wilson Center events). For discounted Festival Tickets (students $52 and adults $80), phone 414-962-3055.

Events will open with a recital at the Wisconsin Conservatory by Sejoon Park on June 4 at 7:30 p.m. On June 5 and 7, from 8:15 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., semifinalists will perform solo and collaborative recitals with Milwaukee Symphony musicians at the Conservatory before audiences and a distinguished panel of three judges: José Feghali, Joel Harrison and Robert McDonald. After listening to each contestant perform for almost 1-½ hours, the judges will select three to perform full concertos with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and PianoArts Music Director Andrews Sill on June 9 at 7:30 p.m. for the Finals & Awards Concert at Brookfield’s Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts.

The solo and duo programs, as well as the concertos performed by each of the semifinalists, are posted on the PianoArts Web site. Running coverage of the competition can be followed at www.pianoarts.blogspot.com.

New in 2010:

• Recital, José Feghali, 2010 judge

• Non-competitive master classes by the judges for auditioned young musicians

• Master class recital by participating young musicians

• Panel discussions: “Careers in Music” and “Working with Managers and Presenters”

• “Concerto Conversations” with Stephen Basson, prior to the Finals & Awards Concert

• Community concerts performed by the semifinalists

• “Junior Jury,” a panel of young musicians who select their own 2010 winner

Prizes totaling over $20,000 will be formally presented during the Awards Ceremony, including First, Second, and Third Place Prizes; Audience Communication Award; Best Performance of a Violin or Cello/Piano Duo; scholarship to the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College of Music in New York City; Fellowships toperform for diverse Milwaukee audiences; concert performances, including a Debut Recital at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts; and the Junior Jury Prize.

The competition began in March with candidates from seven countries and states coast to coast performing the Preliminary Round on DVD. Judges were Dr. Eun-Joo Kwak, Cardinal Stritch University; Dr. Christos Tsitsaros, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; and Dr. Jeannie Yu. The non-voting chair was Dr. Margaret Otwell.

PianoArts is committed to providing professional growth for all competitors. Every contestant receives one-on-one comments about their performances from the judges at all competition levels. Semifinalists and finalists attend concerto master classes and have private sessions with professionals on topics such as “Speaking to Audiences about Music.” All rehearse with Music Director Andrews Sill, and their collaborating pianists, violinists and cellists in advance of their public competition performances.

Pianists Advanced to the Semifinals are:

Alexander Beyer

Age 15

Fairfield, Connecticut
(Warde High School)

John Chen

Age 16

Lovettsville, Virginia
(Notre Dame Academy

The Juilliard Pre-College Division)

Alison Chiang

Age 18,

Plano Texas
(Plano West Senior High School)

Benjamin Hopkins

Age 20

Rochester, New York;

(University of Southern California,

Thornton School of Music)

Andrew Kim

Age 20

Los Angeles, California

(University of California at Los Angeles)

Yesse Kim

Age 17

Ann Arbor, Michigan
(Pioneer High School)

David Yoshiaki Ko

Age 17

Millbrae, California

(Hannover University for Music & Dance, Hannover, Germany)

Philip Kwoka

Age 18

Wellington, Florida
(Cleveland Institute of Music)

Fan-Ya Lin

Age 20

Taipei, Taiwan and Ogden, Utah

(Weber State University)

Tristan Savella

Age 18

Ithaca, New York
(Eastman School of Music)

Michael Stewart

Age 20

West Valley City,Utah

(University of Utah)

Kai Talim

Age 17

Portland, Oregon

Sunet High School

About PianoArts

The mission of PianoArts is to develop innovative ways to foster appreciation and performance of classical music by identifying and training a new generation of pianists with exceptional musical and verbal communication skills and by presenting them to diverse audiences.

Pianist Sejoon Park

PRELUDE RECITAL
Friday, June 4
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music
7:30 pm
Adults $15; Students $10

Sejoon Park, 2008 winner, sets the standard for the competition to follow. His program includes works by Robert Schumann, Domenico Scarlatti, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Speaking about himself, Sejoon says, "I am a normal teenager who happens to be in love with music.... to feel the connection between myself and the audience is extremely rewarding”… something Sejoon Park tries to achieve everyday. When Sejoon is not performing or listening to piano music, he enjoys being with his friends, participating in athletics and listening to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart operas, Dimitri Shostakovich symphonies and Peter Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto. But when he was a young student in Seoul, Korea, he was not excited about taking piano lessons. Later on he experienced the joy of expressing himself at the piano and became “addicted to music.”

Sejoon was eleven when he moved to the United States to live with his aunt and to study at the Levin School of Music. When he arrived, he could not speak English. Today, he is an honor student, graduate of McLean High School and college sophomore. Sejoon attends the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University, where he studies with Boris Slutsky

In 2007 Sejoon won first prize in the Aspen Music Festival Piano Concerto and performed Edward Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Orchestra of the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen. In 2006 he won first Prize in the Southeastern Piano Concerto Competition and performed the Grieg’s concerto with the South Carolina Philharmonic. Other awards include first prizes in the Marlin-Engel and the Cogen Concerto Competitions, both sponsored by the Levine School of Music in Washington D. C., and first prize at the Alexandria Performing Art Association Competition, second prize in the Oberlin International Piano Competition, second prize in the PianoArts 2005 National Competition and third prize in the Eastman Music School International Piano Competition. Sejoon was selected for the prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award, which carries a generous scholarship and the opportunity to appear on the well-known "From the Top" radio show.

PIANOARTS AWARDS:
2008 First Place Prize

2006 Scholarship to the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College of Music in New York City

2006 Best Performance of a Duo

Schedule of Events

PRELUDE RECITAL
Friday, June 4
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music
7:30 pm
Adults $15; Students $10

Sejoon Park, 2008 winner, sets the standard for the competition to follow. His program includes works by Robert Schumann, Domenico Scarlatti, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

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SEMIFINAL SOLO RECITALS
Saturday, June 5
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music
45-minute recitals 8:15 am - 7:00 pm
General admission all-day pass $15

Semifinalists discuss their music and perform a virtuoso etude, any Frederic Chopin nocturne, a North American composition written after 1940, and a solo of their choice.

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MASTER CLASSES BY MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL JURY
Sunday, June 6
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music
10:30am
Auditors $15

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SEMIFINAL DUO RECITALS
Monday, June 7
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music
8:15 am - 7:00 pm
General all-day pass $15

Semifinalists perform duos with a violinist or cellist from the Milwaukee Symphony and the first movement of concertos with a second pianist.

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CONCERTO MASTER CLASS
Tuesday, June 8
Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts
9:30 am
Auditors $15

Semifinalists, Music Director Andrews Sill, pianist Stefanie Jacob, and MSO musicians explore the concerto art form.

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VAN CLIBURN GOLD MEDAL WINNER'S RECITAL
José Feghali, piano
Tuesday, June 8
Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts
7:00 pm
Adults $25 & $21; Students $10

World-renowned pianist and Gold Medal Winner of the Seventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Mr. Feghali performed with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, recorded for KOSS Classics, and returns to Milwaukee as a PianoArts judge and soloist.

Free! with paid admission to the Van Cliburn Gold Medal Winner's Recital:
3:30 pm - "Careers in Music" and "Working with Managers and Presenters" panel discussions with music professionals
5:00 pm - Master Class performances by participants in the Music Festival

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FINALS & AWARDS CONCERT
Wednesday, June 9
Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts
7:30 pm
Adults $30 & $21; Students $15

Finalists perform complete concertos with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and PianoArts Music Director Andrews Sill. Don't miss this grand finale and see the beginnings of what may be significant professional careers.

Free! with paid admission to the Finals & Awards Concert:
5:00 pm - "Piano Promenades" - Semifinalists perform favorite piano solos prior to the Finals & Awards Concert.
6:30 pm - "Concerto Conversations" with Stephen Basson gives a preview of the concertos performed during the Finals

Box suppers: $7.95. Phone Becca or Julie at 262.781.1789.

Meet the Judges: José Feghali

José Feghali burst upon the music world in 1985 when he won the Gold Medal in the Seventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Ten days later, he performed his United States recital debut to a sold-out hall in Pasadena, California. Today, he is a celebrated artist who has performed over 800 concerts worldwide with renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhaus, Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, London Symphony, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic and, in the U. S. with the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Baltimore, National, Jacksonville and Nashville symphony orchestras. He has collaborated with eminent conductors, such as Kurt Masur, Neeme Järvi, John Nelson, James DePriest, Yuri Temirkanov, Leonard Slatkin, Kurt Sanderling, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christoph Eschenbach, Eduardo Mata, Sergiu Comissiona, Philippe Entremont, Andrew Litton, Zdenek Macal, Hans Graf, David Zinman and Hans Vonk.

Among his recitals on prestigious stages in the United States are those at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and in major halls in Los Angeles and Chicago, where the press hailed him as a pianist “whose gift is musicianship on the most rarefied level.” Others include the Kravis and Meyerson Symphony centers, and performances on the Cliburn Concert series and Ravinia Festival.

His extensive worldwide engagements include the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Eastern Europe, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and Latin America. As a chamber musician, Mr. Feghali has collaborated with the renowned flutist James Galway, cellists Truls Mørk, Antonio Meneses and Daniel Gaisford, violinists Régis Pasquier, Olivier Charlier and Emanuel Borok, duo piano with André Watts, and performances of Richard Strauss’ Enoch Arden with tenor Jon Vickers. Mr. Feghali is an Artist/Faculty member and Associate Director of the Mimir Chamber Music Festival in Fort Worth, and a regular performer at the “Classical Action/Performing Artists Against Aids” benefit concerts.

Born in Brazil, Mr. Feghali gave his first public performance at age five and appeared with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra when he was eight. When he was fifteen, he moved to London to study with Maria Curcio Diamond and later was a scholarship student at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Elton.

Recordings by Mr. Feghali include a compact disc of music inspired by dance for Koss Classics and his live recording from the Van Cliburn Competition on the VAI label. Recent recordings include an all–Schumann program and an all–Brahms program with cellist Daniel Gasiform on the Anacapa Music label. For Naxos, Mr. Feghali, a major advocate of Brazilian music, recorded Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas brasileria no. 3 for Piano and Orchestra with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn.

Mr. Feghali has a special interest in recording technology and is the producer and re-mastering engineer for the retrospective set of nine compact discs for Video Artists International and VAI Audio featuring the live performances of past medalists in the Van Cliburn Competitions. He is Artist–in–Residence at Texas Christian University and serves as Vice President and Executive Director for the new Anacapa Music label.

José Feghali Web site

Meet the Judges: Robert McDonald

American pianist Robert McDonald has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Far East as a soloist and in chamber recitals. His leading violin partners have been Isaac Stern and Midori. He also performs with Yung Uck Kim, Nadja Salerno–Sonnenberg and Elmar Oliverira, among other artists.

Mr. McDonald has a strong commitment to music education. He is on the piano faculties of both the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music and is director of the keyboard program of the Taos School of Music and Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico. He is a former faculty member at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Oberlin and the Peabody Conservatories, and gives classes regularly at the Glenn Gould Professional School in Toronto. Other summer teaching and festival activities include those in Bergen, Besançon, Lucerne, Montreux, Salzburg, Aldeburgh, and Schleswig­–Holstein festivals in Europe, the Marlboro, Brevard and Caramoor festivals in the United States, and the International School of Musical and Arts and the Banff Center in Canada. He also gives piano and chamber music master classes at prominent universities and music schools in the United States, Canada, Japan and Korea.

An active chamber musician, he has performed with the Juilliard, American, Muir, Takacs, Brenano, Fine Arts, St. Lawrence, Borromeo, Shanghai, Orlando, and Chicago quartets, as well as with Musicians from Marlboro on several of their tours. He has also appeared as soloist with the San Francisco, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Curtis symphony orchestras, the Orquestra Sinfonica Nacional of Costa Rica, and the Orchestra Sinfonica Haydn di Bolzano e Trento in Italy. In addition, he has given concerts for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, NHK and BBC television Worldwide.

Among numerous awards, prizes, and grants, Mr. McDonald won the Gold Medal at the Busoni International Piano Competition in Italy, and top prizes at the William Kapell and Washington International Competitions in the United States. He is also the recipient of the National Federation of Music Clubs Artist Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant, and a Career Grant from the Philadelphia Foundation Arthur Hill Fund.

Mr. McDonald’s extensive recordings include those for Sony Classical, Vox, Bridge, Musical Heritage, CRI and ASV. An album of French sonata repertoire with Midori for Sony Classical received the Deutscher Schallplatten Critic’s prize in 2002.

A magna cum laude graduate of Lawrence University in Wisconsin, where Theodore Rehl was his principal teacher, Mr. McDonald continued his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Seymour Lipkin, Rudolf Serkin, and Mieczyslaw Horszowski; at the Juilliard School with Beveridge Webster; and at the Manhattan School of Music with Gary Graffman.

Robert McDonald's biography on Taos School of Music Web site

Meet the Judges: Joel Harrison

Joel Harrison is Artistic Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Pianists Association, an organization that discovers, promotes and advances the careers of young American world-class jazz and classical pianists.

In this position, he is responsible for an extensive, unique and highly competitive fellowship program that provides career assistance worth over $75,000 over a period of two years for one Jazz Cole Porter Fellow and two Classical Fellows.

Other programs under the direction of Dr. Harrison are the DeHaan National Orchestra Program, a nationwide program of concerto performances with orchestras performed by APA Fellows; PianoFest, a national and international touring program; Music Matters, an in-house recital series for friends of APA; the Concerto Curriculum, an educational and community outreach program; and a new classical concert series in the 2009-2010 season, Grand Encounters that will debut with a recital by André Watts.

Through collaborations with the U. S. State Department,Dr. Harrison tours internationally as a United States cultural envoy in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Northern Africa with the APA Classical and Jazz Fellows.

Dr. Harrison judges for international piano competitions and serves on local, regional and national arts committees and boards. He was a music consultant for Sky magazine of Delta Airlines and co-produced a highly acclaimed APA series of three compact discs on the Harmonia Mundi label, which is marketed internationally. As a concert artist, Dr. Harrison performed with critical success on two occasions at Weill Hall of Carnegie Hall, and with his colleague,Lana Johns, performed extensively in Europe and the United States.

Prior to his appointment with the American Pianist Association, Dr. Harrison was on the faculties at Davidson College in North Carolina and Mississippi State University, where he was also Director of the Mississippi Piano Showcase and Touring Artist for the Mississippi Arts Commission. Dr. Harrison received degrees from the University of North Carolina, Indiana University and Northwestern University. He continued with his education in Switzerland, Austria and Italy, where he studied with Guido Agosti. He lives in Indianapolis and, in addition to his music activities, pursues interests in contemporary art and architecture.

American Pianists Association Web site

Welcome!

Get caught up in the music and meet astonishing young pianists, ages 15-20, at an exciting and important turning point in their artistic lives as they compete for prizes, scholarships, performance opportunities, and PianoArts fellowships.

A challenging competition, contestants perform two recitals for world-renowned judges - Jose Feghali, Joel Harrison, and Robert McDonald - and audiences, building in excitement to the grand finale when 3 finalists perform complete concertos with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and PianoArts Music Director Andrews Sill.

The PianoArts 2010 Biennial North American Piano Competition and Music Festival will be held June 3-9 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music (wcmusic.org) and Sharon Lynn Wilson Arts Center in Brookfield (wilson-center.com).

Visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PianoArts, or on our official website, www.PianoArts.org. For questions, please contact PianoArts at 414.962.3055 or PianoArts@sbcglobal.net.