posted June 20, 2006
Wednesday afternoon, 14 highly-qualified pianists will arrive on the Lee University campus to begin its 2nd annual piano competition. The four day contest will include performances by the competitors, along with master classes and a concert featuring the guest judges Amy I-Lin Cheng and Sergey Schepkin and Lee faculty judges Ning An and Gloria Chien.
The contestants this weekend are Hugo Chang, Tiffany Goff, Sunbin Kim, Erica Leung, Nan Lin, Audra Loyd, Alex Ridder, Jessica Spicer, Amy Tai, Marco Topic, Gregory Wang, Sabbath Ward, Faith Wardlaw, Alan Woo.
Hugo Chang was born in Taiwan in 1989 and moved to the United States in 2001. He lives in Irvine, Calif., and has been studying piano and violin since he was 4. Chang has recently received recognition for both piano and violin, including 2nd place in the Junior Bach Festival, Piano, English Suites division; 1st place in the TBAC piano solo competition; and the Special Conductor’s Award at the MTAC Concerto Competition. As a sophomore, he is now attending the Orange County High School of the Arts. Last year, he attended Olympia Youth Orchestra as first violinist. This July, he will be participating in the semi-final round of IIYM International Piano Competition in Kansas City.
Tiffany Goff has just completed her fourth year at the Alexander W. Dreyfoos, Jr. School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, Fla. She has been playing piano for eleven years and currently studies with Ms. Ruo Balko. Goff has appeared throughout South Florida in theatres, hotels, malls, schools and concert halls, and her playing has aired on several local radio and television channels. She has received several awards for her playing including the Musicale, PBCMTA, Boca-Delray, Mount Dora, Savarick, and Byrd competitions, performance and written/aural theory Level Twelve. She recently had the pleasure of participating in the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival in Germany, under the direction of Dr. J.Y. Song. Next year, Tiffany will be pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Hailing from Ringwood, N.J., sixteen-year-old Sunbin “Kevin” Kim has been composing music for piano since the age of four. At age 8, in his first public recital, Sunbin premiered twenty-six of his own compositions for piano and string chamber orchestra at Seoul’s Opus Hall. Since then, Kim has won numerous awards for his composing in various composer’s competitions, but in 2005 showed his piano skill by winning the Bradshaw-Buono International Piano Competition, which resulted in a performance at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. Now a student with Ira Taxin at the Juilliard School of Music’s Preparatory Division, he studies piano privately with Thomas Osuga.
Erica Leung is a 17-year-old homeschooled student, born in Hong Kong, China, but she has lived in Tennessee since she was two. She has studied piano for thirteen years from Mrs. Alice Adams Jackson of Humboldt, Tenn.. During this time, Erica has participated in piano competitions held in Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, Maryville, Knoxville, Cleveland, Memphis, Johnson City, Nashville, and Jackson, Tenn.; as well as Jonesboro, Conway, and Fayetteville, Ark.. She has performed with two symphonies since entering high school and has won many awards for piano performance.
Seventeen-year-old Nan Lin started learning keyboard at the age of four in China. After receiving an A on the highest skill level of at 10, he stopped keyboard and began piano studies. At the age of 13, he moved to America and started studying piano under the teaching of Ning An. He has won numerous awards, including 2nd place in the World Piano Competition, Young Artist Division, level 12 concerto and 3rd place in level 12 solo. He is also a two-time winner of the Midwest Conservatory Piano Competition.
Audra Loyd is a 15-year-old rising 10th grader at Brookwood High School in Snellville, Georgia. She studies piano with Dr. Anna Arshavskaya, currently of Roswell, Georgia. Loyd was the 2004-2005 Georgia state winner of the Music Teachers National Association’s Baldwin Competition. A solo division finalist for the past six years in the International Young Artists Piano Competition directed by Li-Ly Chang in Washington, D.C., Audra won the June 2005 concerto competition. Last summer, Audra studied with Dr. Irene Peery-Fox at Brigham Young University’s Young Musicians Summer Festival, and is among a select few high school pianists accepted into the Eastman School of Music’s 2006 summer Music Horizon’s program.
Alex Ridder, of Hixson, has studied piano for eight years. His formal studies began at age eight, and he is currently taught by Dr. Sin-Hsing Tsai. He has received several awards for his playing, including the Virginia Swick award for the 2002 most outstanding 6th grade student, Honorable Mention at TMTA for 8th grade piano solo in 2004, and the Earl Miller award for the 2005 most outstanding 9th grade student. In 2006, he won both the CMTA Summer Music Camp Scholarship and the 10th Annual UTC Piano Arts Competition. In addition to piano, Alex also plays the violin, is a member of the CSO Youth Orchestra, and recently attained the rank of Eagle Scout with the Boy Scouts of America. Alex is an avid music lover, and when he has spare time, he enjoys listening to classical music.
Jessica Spicer is a 17-year-old rising senior from Seaford, De. Currently a student of piano instructor Dianne Seiler of Seaford, Del., she began studying music at age seven as a voice student. At age 10 she began studying the piano and has also taken clarinet, flute, and violin lessons. Her favorite types of music to play on the piano are Classical and Romantic, especially the works of composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and Debussy. Her piano performance experience has included seven annual regional piano competitions, seven GUILD auditions, piano marathons, and numerous recitals. She plans to attend college most likely major in music education.
Amy Tai, of Tulsa, Okla., is the daughter of James and Peggy Tai, and the piano student of Gloria N. Johnson. She is 14 years of age and attends Jenks High School. She was the 2006 Oklahoma State MTNA Competition winner, Spindler scholarship winner, and the OMTA Senior Audition Winner. She is also a member of the Hyechka Music club and the winner of the 2005 20th Century Piano Competition, held by the Amadeus Piano Festival. Amy's favorite subjects at school are Latin, math, and science, and she participates in debate. She also volunteers at the local library. Amy enjoys music, reading and cooking.
Marco Topic, of West Palm Beach, Fla., has been playing piano for ten years. His teacher is Ruo Huang Balko, and he recently graduated from the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts. Next year, Topic will be attending the Lynn Conservatory of Music. He has won first place in four countywide competitions, first place in the Boca Delray Piano Competition, and 3rd place in the 2005 Lee University Piano Competition. He enjoys surfing, wakeboarding, spearfishing, fishing, chess, ping pong and jamming.
Gregory Wang, runner-up at the MTNA’s Southern Division Baldwin Junior Performance Competition, is a 9th grade student at Science Hill in Johnson City, Tenn. He has been studying piano since the second grade and has competed in numerous events, winning various awards from the Tennessee Music Teachers Association (TMTA). Wang attended the Southeastern Piano Festival at the University of South Carolina on full scholarship and was awarded third prize in the concerto competition during the festival. A student of E.T.S.U.’s Dr. Benjamin Caton since the third grade, Wang has performed with the Johnson City Symphony Orchestra and the Maryville Symphony Orchestra. He is also a member of Tennacity, a trio of piano, violin, and cello which was named winner of the TMTA Chamber Music Competition in 2004 and 2005.
Eighteen-year-old Sabbath Ward performed with the Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra in December of 2005 in Morristown, Tenn., and her hometown of Athens, Tenn. In March 2006, she performed in the War Memorial Auditorium at the Capital Plaza in Nashville for the Tennessee Home Education Association. In 10th grade, she placed 1st at the UTC Piano Arts Competition and received Honorable Mention at the TMTA State Auditions in 9th and 10th grades. A high school graduate as of this May, Ward has been studying piano, performing and competing since the age of five.
Faith Wardlaw, from Richmond, Tx., has played the piano for 12 years and won a number of local competitions. She has also played the violin for four years, and performed with the Houston Youth Symphony for three years. Wardlaw, who is seventeen years old, just graduated from her homeschool and will be attending Baylor University in the fall to major in piano performance. Her career goal is to become a trauma surgeon.
Alan Woo is a 14-year-old ninth grader from Falls Church, Va., and currently studies piano with Rosita Kerr Mang. Last summer, Woo was a semifinalist in the 2nd Annual International Institute for Young Musicians competition hosted in Lawrence, Kansas. He was also a laureate in the Eastern Division of the MTNA’s Junior High piano competition in Plymouth, New Hampshire in January, 2005, after winning at the District of Columbia state level. Woo has played with the Maryland Youth Symphony Orchestra and will perform with the Capital Symphony in Washington D.C. next March.
The first competition session will occur in the Squires Recital Hall in the DeVos Center for the Humanities at 9 a.m. on Thursday. A special judges concert will be held on Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. in Squires Recital Hall which will be open to the public.
Tickets are $10 and will be required for admission. Winners will be presented Saturday morning at 11:45 a.m. For more information or to reserve tickets for Friday’s concert, please contact the Department of Instrumental Music at Lee, (423) 614-8264.
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