MEET THe Artists
Tanya Gabrielian, piano
Hailed by the London Times as a “pianist of powerful physical and imaginative muscle”, Tanya Gabrielian has captivated audiences worldwide with her gripping performances. She has performed on five continents in acclaimed venues including Carnegie Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Sydney Opera House, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall in London, and the Salle Cortot in Paris, with such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Boston Pops.
Tanya shot onto the international stage at the age of twenty with back-to-back victories in the Scottish International Piano Competition and Aram Khachaturyan International Piano Competition. Since then, performance engagements have included Alice Tully Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York, Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, Seoul Arts Center in Korea, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, an eleven-city tour of China, and a return recital engagement at Wigmore Hall in London. Tanya’s Southbank debut recital in the Purcell Room in London, presented by the Philharmonia Orchestra, was chosen as “Performance of the Year” by Seen and Heard International. Her Wigmore Hall debut, as winner of the coveted Wigmore Prize awarded by the Royal Academy of Music, was reviewed as “revelatory, a feast of romantic pianism which held us enthralled” and “an astounding achievement by any standards, and one I cannot imagine being bettered… Remember the name—Tanya Gabrielian—you will be hearing a lot more from her I feel sure.” Tanya’s latest recording, Remix: Bach Transcriptions, was released on MSR Classics and was selected as Album of the Week by radio stations in Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. She has also been featured on the cover of the magazine Clavier.
In addition to the traditional concert stage, Tanya is passionate about inspiring new generations of musicians and music lovers in diverse settings, dedicated to community engagement, education, and activism through art. Projects have included collaborations with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in programs featuring composers with mental illnesses, highlighting the stigma around mental health issues; a TEDx Talk at the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground; founding an interactive performance series for patients at the New York State Psychiatric Institute; an installation with the artist Fran Bull for the exhibit In Flanders Fields: A Meditation on War; and a multidisciplinary collaboration combining Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross with final statements from executed death row inmates. Tanya was awarded the Pro Musicis International Award, McGraw-Hill Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach, Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and the S&R Washington Award for her work, and she has held Artist-in-Residencies at Guild Hall and 23Arts.
Tanya’s interests have always been diverse. Admitted to Harvard University to study biomedical engineering at the age of sixteen, Tanya instead pursued a career in music, completing her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Royal Academy of Music in London, originally studying both piano and viola. She received the prize for the best final recital for all six years of study and received a DipRAM, the highest performance award given by the Royal Academy of Music. Tanya was the only candidate accepted for the prestigious Artist Diploma, an extraordinarily selective post-graduate residency program, at The Juilliard School, and received a Doctor of Musical Arts from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Tanya was appointed Head of Keyboard at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in 2023. Prior to joining the faculty at RIAM, she was Chair of Piano at Boston University and Martin Endowed Chair and Professor of Practice at Indiana University South Bend.
Please visit www.tanyagabrielian.com for more information. Find out more
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Although long regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Mr. Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, which ranges over the entire piano literature. A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Mr. Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. To date he has at his command more than 80 concertos, ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century, many commissioned for him. In 2018/19 season he launched an ambitious project spread over multiple seasons exploring the complete solo piano works of Brahms in four programs to be heard in New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Los Angeles, London and a number of cities across North America.
A frequent guest with the orchestras in New Zealand and Australia, Mr. Ohlsson accomplished a seven city recital tour across Australia just prior to the closure of the concert world due to COVID-19. Since that time and as a faculty member of San Francisco Conservatory of Music he kept music alive for a number of organizations with live or recorded recital streams and since the re-opening of concert activity in summer 2021 has appeared with the Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, Toronto and Cleveland orchestras, in recital in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston; Ravinia and Tanglewood summer festivals and a tour in the US with colleague Kirill Gerstein. The 2022/23 season includes orchestras in Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, San Diego, Spain, Poland and Czech Republic.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Ohlsson has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Tokyo and Takacs string quartets and will begin the 22/23 season with a US tour with Poland’s Apollon Musagete quartet. Together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, he is a founding member of the San Francisco-based FOG Trio. Passionate about singing and singers, Mr. Ohlsson has appeared in recital with such legendary artists as Magda Olivero, Jessye Norman, and Ewa Podleś.
Mr. Ohlsson can be heard on the Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, BMG, Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc, Hyperion and Virgin Classics labels. His ten-disc set of the complete Beethoven Sonatas, for Bridge Records, has garnered critical acclaim, including a GRAMMY® for Vol. 3. His recording of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3, with the Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano, was released in 2011. In the fall of 2008 the English label Hyperion re-released his 16-disc set of the Complete Works of Chopin followed in 2010 by all the Brahms piano variations, “Goyescas” by Enrique Granados, and music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes. Most recently on that label are Scriabin’s Complete Poèmes, Smetana Czech Dances, and ètudes by Debussy, Bartok and Prokofiev. The latest CDs in his ongoing association with Bridge Records are the Complete Scriabin Sonatas, “Close Connections,” a recital of 20th-Century pieces, and two CDs of works by Liszt. In recognition of the Chopin bicentenary in 2010, Mr. Ohlsson was featured in a documentary “The Art of Chopin” co-produced by Polish, French, British and Chinese television stations. Most recently, both Brahms concerti and Tchaikovsky’s second piano concerto were released on live performance recordings with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphonies on their own recording labels, and Mr. Ohlsson was featured on Dvorak’s piano concerto in the Czech Philharmonic’s recordings of the composer’s complete symphonies & concertos, released July of 2014 on the Decca label.
A native of White Plains, N.Y., Garrick Ohlsson began his piano studies at the age of 8, at the Westchester Conservatory of Music; at 13 he entered The Juilliard School, in New York City. His musical development has been influenced in completely different ways by a succession of distinguished teachers, most notably Claudio Arrau, Olga Barabini, Tom Lishman, Sascha Gorodnitzki, Rosina Lhévinne and Irma Wolpe. Although he won First Prizes at the 1966 Busoni Competition in Italy and the 1968 Montréal Piano Competition, it was his 1970 triumph at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where he won the Gold Medal (and remains the single American to have done so), that brought him worldwide recognition as one of the finest pianists of his generation. Since then he has made nearly a dozen tours of Poland, where he retains immense personal popularity. Mr. Ohlsson was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 1994 and received the 1998 University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award in Ann Arbor, MI. He is the 2014 recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, and in August 2018 the Polish Deputy Culture Minister awarded him with the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for cultural merit. He is a Steinway Artist and makes his home in San Francisco.
Stephen Prutsman, piano
Stephen Prutsman has been described as one of the most innovative musicians of his time. Moving easily from classical to jazz to world music styles as a pianist and composer, Prutsman continues to explore and seek common ground and relationships in the music of all cultures and languages.
In the early 2000s Stephen was Artistic Partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, where he wrote several new works for the orchestra, led performances of other composers as a conductor and pianist, and developed the orchestra's contemporary and world music series. Later he was the Artistic Director of the Cartagena International Festival of Music, South America’s largest festival of its kind, programming and curating concerts with themes ranging from Mozart celebrations, to eclectic evenings of folk and popular music of the Americas, to hybrid programs fusing art and dance music of multiple musical dimensions.
In the early 90’s he was a medal winner at the Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth Piano Competitions, and received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since then Stephen has performed the classical concerto repertoire as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras and his classical discography includes acclaimed recordings of the Barber and McDowell concerti with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, recordings of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and a solo jazz album entitled "Passengers".
Born in Los Angeles, Stephen first began playing the piano by ear at age 3 before moving on to more formal music studies. In his teens and early 20s he was the keyboard player for several art rock groups including Cerberus and Vysion (and was a winner of television’s “The Gong Show”!) During those years, he worked regularly as a solo jazz pianist playing in many southern California clubs and lounges and was the music arranger for a nationally syndicated televangelist program.
As a composer, Stephen’s long collaboration with Grammy Award winning Kronos Quartet has resulted in over 40 arrangements and compositions for them. Other leading artists and ensembles who have performed Stephen’s compositions and arrangements include Leon Fleisher, Dawn Upshaw, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, Spoleto USA, and the Silk Road Project. In 2010, his song cycle “Piano Lessons” was premiered by Ms. Upshaw and Emanuel Ax at Carnegie Hall (New York), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Disney Hall (Los Angeles) and the Barbican Centre (London). As a pianist or arranger outside of the classical music world he has collaborated with such diverse personalities as Tom Waits, Rokia Traore, Jon Anderson of “YES”, Sigur Rós and Asha Bhosle. He has scored for a variety of ensembles 15 silent films from the 1920s which are regularly presented at various venues throughout the world.
He is a board member of several organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area promoting the well-being of people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and regularly produces and curates "Azure Concerts" musical performances tailored for individuals on the autism spectrum and their families. He was recently named Creative Director for Phenotypic Recordings, a new company specializing in recordings of contemporary music, and in January of 2023 Prutsman began a 2-year appointment as Visiting Artist at Stanford University.
Sharon Mann, piano
Sharon Mann's early training on the piano began in Chicago with teachers Rudolph Ganz and Isador Buchhalter and continued with Irwin Freundlich and Rosalyn Tureck. She holds the country's first doctorate in piano/chamber music from Northwestern University in addition to her degrees from The Juilliard School and Stanford University. A respected soloist and ensemble player, Dr. Mann is widely acclaimed for her penetrating interpretations of Bach’s keyboard music: Her recording of the Six Partitas has recently been re-released by Cappella Records, and she has performed with such artists as Alain Marion, Michael Grebanier, Elaine Skorodin-Fuhrmann, and the Cavani String Quartet.
An appointee of Governor Richard Celeste, Dr. Mann was, for six years, Artistic Director of Ohio’s Governor’s Series, lecturing on radio directly from the state mansion. She has also served as Artistic Director of California’s Junior Bach Festival and as producer of the Soviet Emigré Orchestra.
Dr. Mann has held faculty positions with the Itzhak Perlman Music Program, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the California Summer Music Festival, St. Olaf College, and Mills College. She has taught internationally in Germany, Greece, Italy, and China (where she returns annually), as well across the U.S. in Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Utah. She is currently working on a new edition of the complete Bach Keyboard Suites. Learn More
Jeffrey LaDeur, piano
Jeffrey LaDeur is known for his rare blend of insight, spontaneity, and approachable, communicative stage presence. Clic Musique Magazine (France) lauded “…an irreproachable legato, a beautiful palette of nuances, and an always well-balanced sound.” Having inherited a rich tradition of pianism and interpretation from Annie Sherter, student of Vlado Perlemuter and Alfred Cortot, LaDeur has established himself as a compelling exponent of classic and new repertoire. In March of 2018, LaDeur made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall on the centennial of Claude Debussy’s death. He appears regularly with orchestra and maintains a repertoire of over 40 concerti. LaDeur is the founder and artistic director of the San Francisco International Piano Festival and president of the American Liszt Society, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter.
LaDeur’s most recent solo recording features music of Liszt and was released by Music & Arts in April of 2022. Critic Henry Fogel wrote, “The beauty of his coloration, the rightness of his phrasing, and his sensitive dynamic shaping, all draw the listener into Liszt’s world.” A chamber musician of distinction, Jeffrey’s collaboration with mezzo soprano Kindra Scharich has produced To My Distant Beloved, an album exploring the connections between Beethoven and Schumann through cycles in song and solo piano works. LaDeur has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Robert Mann, Bonnie Hampton, Ian Swensen, Axel Strauss, Geoff Nuttall, and the Alexander String Quartet.
An active educator, Jeffrey offers masterclasses frequently as guest artist in universities throughout the United States and coaches gifted pre-college piano and string ensembles at Young Chamber Musicians in Burlingame, California. LaDeur holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and San Francisco Conservatory of Music in piano performance and chamber music, respectively. Jeffrey counts among his teachers Mark Edwards, Douglas Humpherys, Yoshikazu Nagai, and Robert McDonald.
JeffreyLaDeur.com SFPIANO.ORG Find out more.*
Dr. Kathleen Riley, piano
Dr. Kathleen Riley is a pianist, Yamaha Artist in Education, performer, researcher, lecturer, teacher and writer with a mission to help performing artists connect more deeply with their purpose and heart’s intelligence, and to voice it through their performances.
Having received three degrees in piano performance, she performed for many years as a soloist and chamber musician. She pursued a doctorate in piano performance and investigated innovative ways to deepen pianists’ awareness of nuances in performers’ interpretations. Kathleen then went on to post-doctoral studies in neurophysiology and psychology at NYU.
She brought in her new found knowledge through neurophysiology, psychology and biofeedback into her “toolbox” for students and professionals to optimize their performances. Kathleen has many certifications in biofeedback and is a certified HeartMath® Trainer.
Kathleen served on faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Presently, Kathleen coaches and gives masterclasses and workshops in the San Francisco area. She has recently been appointed Visiting Research Scholar in the Institute for Holistic Health Studies at San Francisco State University where she will be presenting seminars and conducting research with musicians.
Telegraph Quartet
Joseph Maile, violin
Eric Chin, violin
Pei-ling Lin, viola
Jeremiah Shaw, cello
The Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for the standard chamber music repertoire and contemporary, non-standard works alike. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet has performed in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions across the United States and abroad, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. The Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence.
Alvise Pascucci, piano
Italian pianist Alvise Pascucci has been defined by music critics as an outstanding young pianist who possesses a virtuoso technique as well as musicianship of a high order. His repertoire covers a wide range from Baroque to contemporary music. To date he has been awarded over 60 prizes in National and International competitions.
Alvise has performed in various venues, including Steinway Hall in London, UK, Military Circle Hall in Ploieşti, Romania, Teatro degli Industri of Grosseto, Italy, Dar Sebastien in Hammamet, Tunisia, and the Gnessin Academy of Music concert hall in Moscow, Russia. He has played as a soloist with several orchestras including Orchestra Città di Grosseto, the Taipei Philarmonia Orchestra, and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Ploiesti. His 2019 commitments included concerts in New York at the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, Taiwan and Italy.
Demonstrating his musical versatility, in addition to the piano, Alvise started to learn the violin at the age of nine. After graduating in September, 2006 from St.Cecilia conservatoire in Rome in violin, Mr. Pascucci decided to concentrate on his piano studies and completed his degrees in the R. Franci conservatoire of Siena, P. Mascagni Conservatoire of Livorno, International Piano Academy of Imola, and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of London. In 2017 he relocated to Indiana, where he obtained a Performer Diploma from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, studying with Roberto Plano. He is now working towards his DMA at UC Santa Barbara with Paul Berkowitz, where he has been awarded the prestigious Chancellor’s Fellowship. Find out more.
Parker Van Ostrand, piano
Parker Van Ostrand currently studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Garrick Ohlsson and Yoshikazu Nagai. He recently won the 2023 PianoTexas Academy Concerto Competition and performed with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra this past June. In 2022, he won the Gold Medal in the 71st Wideman International Piano Competition and in November, collaborated with Yuja Wang for a two-piano performance at the SFCM Gala. Last June, he was selected to play in the inaugural G. Henle Verlag Murray Perahia Masterclass in Munich. Parker also won Third Prize and the Best Sonata Award in the 2020 National Chopin Piano Competition, and was one of 20 high school students nationwide named a 2021 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts. Since 2014, he has played with eight orchestras, and toured with the California Youth Symphony to Eastern Europe last summer with Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety.” Next season, he will perform with the Camellia Symphony, Symphony Parnassus, South Arkansas Symphony, Shreveport Symphony, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music orchestra as winner of their 2023 Concerto Competition. He will also give recitals at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, the Tutunov Series in Ashland, the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, the Washington International Piano Festival, and Gretna Music with violinist Amaryn Olmeda. Parker is from Sacramento, CA, and previously studied with Linda Nakagawa, Natsuki Fukasawa, Sarah Chan, and Jon Nakamatsu.
Karina Tseng, piano
Pianist KARINA TSENG is a San Francisco Bay Area native currently studying in Rochester, New York at the Eastman School of Music. Most recently, she was the youngest finalist at the 2023 Bösendorfer USASU International Competition and the winner of the 2022 Marian Garcia International Competition. Karina has performed alongside orchestras such as the Palo Alto Philharmonic, New Millennium Chamber Orchestra, and the Golden State Youth Symphony and played in venues including Weill-Carnegie Hall (NY), Merkin Hall (NY), Leighton Hall (IN), Merrill Auditorium (ME), and the Mondavi Center (CA). She is a top prizewinner of the Kaufman International, Arthur Fraser International, National YoungArts, Pacific Musical Society, Enkor International, Ross McKee, and Junior Steinway competitions, among others. In 2020, Karina was inducted into the distinguished MTAC (Music Teachers Association of California) Young Artist Guild through which she is offered semi-professional paid performance opportunities throughout California.
Karina is honored to have worked with artists such as Simon Trpčeski, Douglas Humpherys, Gary Graffman, Dang Thai Son, Boris Slutsky, Sasha Starcevich, and Richard Goode through various masterclasses. Over previous summers, she attended the Southeastern Piano Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Vivace International Music Festival, Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Piano Program, Gina Bachauer Piano Festival, and the Philadelphia Young Pianists Academy. Find out more.
Sarah Yuan, piano
Sarah Yuan, age 17, lives in Moraga and is a senior at Miramonte High School. She began piano studies at age seven and is currently a student of Dr. Sharon Mann. Since 2015, Sarah has won awards at the Pacific Musical Society Competition, Etude Club’s Young Artist Competition, the Sturm-Page Scholarship Competition, and the Ross McKee Piano Competition. She was also an Honorable Mention winner for the 2022 YoungArts competition. As part of the Young Chamber Musicians program, Sarah is currently the pianist for the Aveta Trio, which won the gold medal at the Junior Fischoff National Competition in 2021. She has performed in masterclasses for artists such as Tamas Ungar, Albert Kim, Michael Tan, Jeff LaDeur, the Gryphon Trio, and the Lee Trio, and has attended programs such as PianoTexas at Fort Worth and the Bowdoin International Music Festival.
Munan Cheng, piano
Munan Cheng, 17, is a rising senior at Valley Christian High School, San Jose, California. She currently studies with Dr. Sharon Mann.
Munan has been a laureate of the Ross McKee Piano Competition, Celia Mendez Beethoven Competition, Dubois Piano Competition, Princeton Festival Piano Competition, Young Euregion Piano Award, CAPMT Honors Competition, United States International Competition, San Jose International Piano Competition, Los Angeles Young Musician International Competition, and Pacific Musical Society Competition.
Munan studies chamber music through Young Chamber Musicians in Burlingame, and she is also a member of Bay Area Youth Music Society, a non-profit community service program. Outside of music, Munan loves to cuddle with her dogs and eat good food.
Solomon Ge, piano
Solomon Ge is a pianist and composer from San Jose, CA, who currently studies with Ms. Haesun Paik and Mr. Alessio Bax at the New England Conservatory of Music. He has won First Prize at the 2022 PianoArts North American Competition, 2021 Arthur Fraser International Piano Competition and the 2021 Ann & Charles Eisemann International Young Artists Competition. As an active soloist, he has performed with the South Carolina Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Richardson Symphony Orchestra, and Peninsula Symphony, among others. In the summer of 2022, he joined the San Jose Youth Symphony as a soloist on a tour to the Baltic countries and Finland.
This summer, he studied at the Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Program for Piano and Strings, where he worked with musicians such as Robert Levin, Miriam Fried, and Gary Hoffman, and was further invited to the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival for the summer of 2024. His prior festival appearances include the Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Festival, International Maestro Piano Festival in Taipei, and Southeastern Piano Festival.
He regularly performs his own compositions in recitals, and recently recorded his solo piano work,Threnody, for the Pinna Records label, with all proceeds from the release being donated to the Jed Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting the mental well being of teenagers.
Matthias Santucci, piano
Matthias Santucci is a 2023 high school graduate from Bend, Oregon. As a newly admitted student of SFCM, he will be working toward a degree in piano performance in the studios of Professors Garrick Ohlsson and Jon Nakamatsu. In addition to studying at SFCM this fall, he will be receiving coaching from Dr. Kathleen Riley, Optimal Performance Biofeedback Specialist, to heal and retrain an overuse injury. Matthias has won scholarships from both Sunriver Music Festival and Bend Rotary Club for the last 6 years. He has competed in several Oregon based competitions such as Oregon Mozart Players and the Central Oregon Symphony, as well as attending the Young Musicians and Artists summer camp and Interlochen Arts Camp where he has won the opportunity to play with the orchestra and in showcase performances. He was awarded Interlochen’s Piano Prize. He has performed in numerous student recitals and masterclasses with renowned pianists, including Cliburn competition medalists Dmytro Choni and Kenneth Broberg. When not practicing or performing, Matthias enjoys weight lifting, games with family and friends, as well as playing with various music ensembles.
Aveta Trio
Sarah Yuan, piano
Eunseo Oh, violin
Elliott Kim, cello
Winners of the 2021 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition (Junior Division) the Aveta Trio has dazzled audiences with their performances of Beethoven, Dvorak, Cassado, Mendelssohn and more. The Trio was formed and continues to study through Young Chamber Musicians, Burlingame, in partnership with Music at Kohl Mansion.
Coco Connor, piano
Coco Connor is a rising senior at Lowell High School in San Francisco. She has attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music since age 6 where she is a student of Sandra Wright Shen. She participated in the John Perry Academy Summer Piano Festival in 2018 and 2019 (JPA). In 2019 and 2022, she performed at "Flower Piano" in the San Francisco Botanical Garden, and in 2019 she participated in the AIMS Strings and Piano Academy in Solsona, Spain. She was also invited to premiere a composition by Daniel Felsenfeld at the MTAC convention. In the summer of 2022, she also participated in the Masterworks Music Festival in Spartanburg, SC, where she won the Masterworks Concerto Competition and played with the Festival orchestra. Coco was invited to perform a solo recital in the Noon Arts and Lectures Series in San Jose, CA, in June, and presented her Junior Recital at San Francisco Conservatory the same month. Coco is also a prizewinner of the 2019, 2020, and 2022 US Open Music Competition, the 2019 and 2022 Marilyn Mindell Piano Competition, and honorable mention in 2023 MTAC Concerto Competition. She has performed regularly at Laguna Honda Hospital and Family House to entertain the patients and their families. She is also a member of the ensembles Trio 413 and Quartet 465, which both won First Place in the VOCE State Finals for chamber music. Coco has performed in masterclasses with many great pianists, including John Perry, Ann Schein, Sasha Starcevich, Mack McCray, Steven Spooner, and Jon Nakamatsu. She loves to read, hike, and bake.
Iris Cai, piano
Iris Cai, 16, is a piano student of John McCarthy and a rising junior at The Harker School in San Jose. She has performed in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall as first prize winner in the American Protege Music Talent Competition, and most recently, was named a laureate of the 2023 Ross McKee Piano Competition. Iris has also received awards in numerous other competitions, including the Henry and Carol Zeiter Piano Competition, the ENKOR Int’l Music Competition, and the United States Open Music Competition.
In addition to her enthusiasm for her piano studies, Iris participates in competitive math and is an avid poet.
Jacob Rockower, piano
Jacob Rockower began studying piano performance at the age of three. He currently studies under the direction of Professor Hans Boepple and previously studied with Lena Grozman. At 14 years of age, Jacob has won awards including Winner in 2022 Music Teachers’ Association of California (MTAC) Concerto Solo Competition North California Regional, 2022 Marilyn Mindell Piano Competition Junior Division, and 2021 Pacific Musical Society & Foundation Annual Competition, 1st place in 2021 MTAC Concerto Solo Competition State Finals, 2015 and 2020 California Association of Professional Music Teachers (CAPMT) Contemporary Music Competition State Finals, 2017 CAPMT Contemporary Music Competition District 2, 2022 and 2021 CAPMT Honors Competition, District 2, and the 21st Annual San Francisco Chopin Competition for Young Pianists, and First Alternate in 2021 MTNA Junior Performance Competition California. He also enjoys frisbee, table tennis, and math.