Winners of the 5th New York International Piano Competition
By Catherine Hampton
Publicist
June 28, 2010
June 28, 2010, New York City—16-year old pianist Kate Liu was awarded First Prize at the Fifth New York International Piano Competition, which was held at The Manhattan School of Music, June 21-25, 2010. Ms. Liu, born in Singapore and a resident of Winnetka, Illinois, received 6,000 for her accomplishment. In addition to winning First Prize, she was also singled out for her “Best Performance” of a required contemporary work, which this year was Avner Dorman’s Sonata No. 2: Il Agitato. Mr. Dorman, a noted Israeli composer, was on hand to present this award to Ms. Liu at the final awards ceremony.
Kate Liu began playing the piano at the age of four. She now resides in Winnetka, IL and studies with Dr. Alan Chow of the Music Institute of Chicago. Ms. Liu has also studied with Meng-Chieh Liu, Emilio del Rosario and Micah Yui. Ms. Liu has been a prize-winner at several competitions including the Society of American Musicians Competition, Louisiana International Piano Competition, and the junior division of the Chicago Steinway Competition, among others.
The Second Prize was awarded to Taipei-born Yen-Yu Chen, age 16, a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; the Third Prize went to Jung Eun Kim, age16, from Seoul, South Korea; the winners of the First Prize in One Piano Four Hands category were Jung Eun Kim and Anna Dmytrenko, 17, from Newark, Delaware; the Second-Prize winners in the One Piano Four Hands category were Chelsea Wang, age 16, from Des Moines, Iowa, and Fan-Ya Lin, age 20, from Ogden, Utah.
Twenty-two pianists, ages 16-21, gathered from across the globe for this week-long event. The level of competition has been uniformly high over the event’s 10 year history; former winners have gone on to win the YCA first prize and become NFAA Presidential Scholars. Held every two years, the New York International Piano Competition is dedicated to providing artistic development, educational enhancement, seminars, master classes and performance opportunities. This year’s jurors included Ian Hobson, Tong-Il Han, André-Michel Schub, Alan Walker, Jane Coop, and Erik Tawaststjerna.
The Stecher and Horowitz Foundation, a non-profit organization, is an outgrowth of the renowned Stecher and Horowitz School of the Arts which was founded in 1960 in Cedarhurst, New York. Until 1999 the school was Nassau County’s leading conservatory of music, attended by some 15,000 students during its thirty-nine year history. The Foundation is now dedicated to an expanded concept that seeks to inspire and support outstanding young musicians nationwide.
Melvin Stecher and Norman Horowitz, Executive Directors of the Stecher and Horowitz Foundation, have devoted a lifetime to the musical education of young people. Internationally recognized as one of the most distinguished duo-piano teams of their generation, Stecher and Horowitz are equally renowned for their multi-faceted activities as performers, teachers, composers and educational consultants – activities that have earned them a unique position in the world of music. Having been co-directors of the Stecher and Horowitz School of the Arts for 39 years, (1960-1999) it was apparent to both principals that the most important and formative years for developing interested young musicians were the pre-teen years and into the early twenties, a good decade of concentrated and formative development. The New York International Piano Competition was originally founded on this premise. For further information about the Fifth New York Piano Competition please visit www.thenyipc.org.
For more information, please contact Hemsing Associates at (212) 772-1132 or visit www.hemsingpr.com ###
