Lee’s School Of Music Welcomes Competitors To Annual Piano Festival

Lee University’s 12th annual International Piano Festival will feature 13 students competing for cash and scholarship awards beginning Thursday. 

The competition concludes a week of concerts and professional instruction. Of the festival’s 19 participants, 11 will showcase their skills in the pre-college competition: Yoonseo Choi, Eriko Darcy, Kimiko Darcy, Yuy Hsiang, Vincent Liu, Joseph Mullen, Mia Pattillo, Jonathan Reichenberger, Tianhao Wu, Christine Yang, and Ailun Zheng. Two students will participate in the college competition: ChihYun Hsiao and Yun Lu. 

The official opening of the piano competition for pre-college students will take place Thursday at 10 a.m. in Squires Hall, located in Lee’s Humanities Center.  At the conclusion of Thursday’s round, pre-college finalists will be selected to perform in the final round on Saturday, June 18, at 10 a.m. These finalists will perform an entirely new program for this year’s judges – Ning An, Enrico Elisi, Shen Lu, Mack McCray, and Cahill Smith. The college competition will take place on Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. 

Prizewinners for both rounds will be named directly following the pre-college final round Saturday. Prizes for the pre-college competition will be $1,500 for first place, $1,000 for second place, and $500 for third place. College competitors are vying for a $1,500 first place prize. 

Yoonseo Choi, 16, lives in Rancho Cucamonga, Ca. He attends Los Osos High School, where he is the secretary and ambassador of the National Society of High School Scholars and a member of the National Honor Society. He started learning the piano at age 10 with Elvin Rodriguez. A Young Artist Guild member of the Music Teacher Association of California, he has received first prize in the Los Angeles Young Musicians International Competition and the Piano Solo Competition of the State Convention Final Auditions from MTAC. He won the Steinway Society Award Festival twice and received the gold medal from the Southern California Junior Bach Festival three times. 

Eriko Darcy, 14, will begin high school this fall at the Latin School of Chicago. She studies piano with Brenda Huang. Eriko is the winner of the Chicago Area Steinway Young Artist Competition, the 2010 Seattle International Piano Competition Youth Division, and the 2015 DePaul University Concerto Competition. She has performed twice at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as first prize winner of the 2011 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition and the 2010 American Fine Arts Festival. Earlier this year, she performed a solo program on WFMT Chicago’s “Introductions” and with the Round Rock Symphony Orchestra as the winner of the Texas State Young Artist Concerto Competition. Her fundraising recitals support the victims of domestic violence in Chicago. 

Kimiko Darcy, 11, attends the Catherine Cook School in Chicago, and studies piano with Brenda Huang.  She has won first prizes at the 2012 and 2014 Music Festival in Honor of Confucius, the Sejong Music Competition, the 2015 DePaul University Concerto Competition, and the 2015 Emilio Del Rosario Piano Concerto Competition (Elementary Division). She performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as the first prize winner of the 2014 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition, and has also appeared on WFMT, Chicago’s classical radio station. Most recently, she performed with Round Rock Symphony Orchestra as the winner of the Texas State Young Artist Concerto Competition. Her fundraising concerts support the victims of domestic violence and Chicago’s uptown community. 

Yuy Hsiang, 15, began studying piano at age four and currently studies with S. C. Frederic Hsiang. Yuy is the grand winner in the National League Showcase Competition; top prize winner in the Enkor Competition; and first prize winner in the International Young Artist Piano Competition, the ChampPiano (High School Division), the Atlanta Romantic Competition, the Atlanta Sonata Competition, and the GMEA (Georgia Music Educators Association) and GMT (Georgia Music Teachers Association). He has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Barbara Kirby Hall, and the Savannah International Conference Center, and was invited to perform a concert at the Cobb Energy Center at age nine. He has played in masterclasses with William DeVan, Dennis Alexander, Alexander Kobrin, Ning An, and Peter Takács.  

Vincent Liu, a junior at Dougherty Valley High School in San Ramon, Ca., studies piano with Hans Boepple. He has won first prizes in the state CAPMT Honors Competition, the Ross McKee Piano Competition, the San Jose International Piano Competition, the Celia Mendez Young Pianist’s Beethoven Competition, the Menuhin-Dowling Competition, and the Sylvia M. Ghiglieri Piano Competition. He has also won prizes and awards at the Arthur Fraser International Piano Competition and the Los Angeles Liszt International Piano Competition. A former participant in the Colburn School Young Artists Summer Academy, he will attend the John Perry Summer Academy and the Tanglewood Institute’s Young Pianist Program this year.  

Joseph Mullen, 17, is from Athens, Ga. He studies piano with Richard Zimdars. 

Mima Pattillo, 17, recently graduated from The Westminster Schools and plans to attend Brown University this fall. She has been playing piano since age four and currently studies with Elena Cholakova of Emory University. Her accomplishments include winning first place in the GMTA State Competition, MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) and GMTA for Georgia, GMEA, and the Rachel Howard Sonata Competition, and second place in the American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition. She has performed for the Atlanta Steinway Society, was a featured performer with the Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra as well as the Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra, and has performed at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. She also enjoys reading and playing tennis. 

Jonathan Reichenberger, 15, has received numerous local, state, and regional awards in the Florida Federation of Music Clubs and Florida State Music Teachers Association. He was the first place winner for six consecutive years in the Pompano Beach Piano Competition. He was also a winner of the International Young Musicians Festival and performed at Carnegie Hall. In 2014, Jonathan won the first place in the Louisiana International Piano Junior Competition, and he and his brother were awarded Alternate in the MTNA Southern Division Senior Duet Piano Competition in 2015.  Last summer, he received second place in the Arthur Fraser International Piano Competition.  

Tianhao Wu, 16, began playing piano at age five. In 2011, he was admitted to The Affiliated High School of Tianjin Conservatory of Music. He has participated in many piano festivals and played in masterclasses with John Perry, Antonio Pomapa-Baldi, Aleksander Korsantia, and Eduardo Delgado. Wu won the first prize in the National Finals of the Fourth International Piano Competition for the Teenagers, the Gold Award in the Fourth Singapore International Chinese Art Festival Piano Competition, and is the Champion of Professional Teenagers Group of the Helen Piano European National Music College Piano Competition for Teenagers. 

Christine Yang, 16, has been playing piano since age five. She is from Atlanta where she studies piano with Elena Cholakova. In 2012, she became a conference recitalist at the GMEA and performed at the convention in Savannah, Ga. She performed at Carnegie Hall for the 2013 International Piano and Strings Competition. As a freshman in high school, she co-won the 2015 Atlanta Music Club Scholarship for the high school keyboard division and was awarded a scholarship for her GMTA audition. In 2015, she studied at the Brevard Music Center and was invited to perform at a fundraising gala with platinum sponsors. Christine won GMEA Allstate and performed at Carnegie Hall again after winning the International Competition of Romantic Music. 

Ailun Zheng, 17, is a junior at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where she is a student of Thomas Lymenstull. Previously, she studied at the Shanghai Conservatory. Ailun won first prize at the Fourth Chinese Music International Competition in Japan and in the 71st Steinway International Youth Piano Competition, East China Division. At Interlochen, she won the 2015 Concerto Competition and was the MTNA Senior Piano Competition winner for Michigan in 2014. Zheng participated in the Shanghai International Piano Festival & Institute, the Perugia Music Festival, and has studied with Boris Slutsky and Yong Hi Moon at the Bowdoin Music Festival. She has also received awards in horseback riding in China. 

ChihYun Hsiao, 17, was born and raised in Taiwan, where she started her music education at an early age. She has participated in regional, national, and international competitions and gave her first public solo recital in 2012. Two of the most renowned colleges in Taiwan selected her for admission as a top applicant for collegiate entrance exams in 2015. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at Eastman School of Music where she studies with Enrico Elisi. Hsiao gave her second recital in March of this year at the Eastman School of Music’s Ciminelli Formal Lounge. 

Yun Lu, 19, is also from Taiwan where she began studying piano at age four. She has won the first prize at the 2015 PianoTexas Young Artists Concerto Competition and the second prize at the 2015 Music Teachers National Association Competition (Senior Division). Yun made her orchestral debut at age 14 with the Taiwan Youth Orchestra. She has played recitals in Taiwan, France, and United States. Lu participated at the Walnut Hill Music Festival, Academie Internationale d'Ete de Nice, Formosa Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, and PianoTexas Festival. She has played in masterclasses for Arie Vardi, Veda Kaplinsky, Dang Thai Son, Piotr Paleczny, and Eugen Indijic. She currently studies with Ning An at Lee University. 

For more information on the Lee University International Piano Festival and Competition, contact Lee’s Department of Musicianship Studies at 614-8264, music@leeuniversity.edu or visit http://www.leeuniversity.edu/academics/music/piano-festival/.