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Jason is 17 years old and was born in South Korea. He is currently a 1st year undergraduate student at the University of Auckland studying with Rae de Lisle. Jason was the winner of the 2008 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition and as a result performed a debut recital in Carnegie Hall, New York, in May of 2008. He was also the 2008 National Young Performer of the Year in New Zealand. He made concert appearances with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra and the Auckland Symphony Orchestra. Jason has given recitals in Auckland, the Korean Embassy in Wellington, Melbourne, Aspen and New York..... |
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Benjamin currently resides and studies in Canada. His recent activities have included performances with the Guelph Symphony Orchestra as winner of their Concerto Competition and as one of eight pianists chosen to perform the complete Prokofiev sonata cycle at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre in the Canadian Opera Company’s Piano Series. Since graduating with 1st class honours from the University of New South Wales studying with Margaret Hair, Ben has recently completed an Artist Diploma at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory in the studio of Professor John Perry. In September of this year Ben will begin studying under Marc Durand at Université de Montréal. |
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Bei Mi was born in Qingdao, China. He entered the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School in 1999. Currently he is finishing his Bachelor of Music at the University of Melbourne on a Faculty Merit Scholarship. He has received a number of scholarships during his time at the University for his recital exam performances. Bei Mi won the 2nd prize in the piano section of the 2002 Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Award and was the winner of the Faculty Concerto and Aria competition of 2006. He has enjoyed success at numerous eisteddfods, especially during his junior years – winning many open sections in the Dandenong and Boroondara Eisteddfods. Bei Mi was selected to compete in the 2007 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition. He performed Prokofiev’s Concerto No 3 last year with
the Melbourne University Orchestra conducted by Brett Dean. He was a competitor and semi-finalist in the Shepparton Australian National Piano Award in 2008. |
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Belle is currently in her 3rd year of Bachelor of Music (Advanced Performance) at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music studying with Oleg Stepanov – her teacher of seven years. Her previous teachers include Helen Dobrenko and Neville Baird. She is the recipient of the 2007 Ruby C Cooling Prize and the Minnie May Bussey Scholarship, and performed the Mozart Piano Concerto No 23 with the Mueller Chamber Orchestra in Brisbane City Hall in 2008. Belle has taken masterclasses from pianists such as Liam Viney, John Perry and Cyprien Katsaris. |
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Maggie began to study the piano at the age of five and flute at the age of ten and has performed extensively as a solo flautist/pianist. At the early age of sixteen Maggie was accepted to study at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and has received many awards and scholarships. Maggie holds a Master of Music degree and a Bachelor of Music in Advanced Performance with First Class Honours and is now completing her Master of Music Studies in Piano Performance with Oleg Stepanov at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. |
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Emerging as one of Australia’s foremost young musicians, Aura Go has performed widely as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor. Her interest in new music has seen her give the Australian premiere performances of Rautavaara’s Piano Concerti Nos. 1 and 2 with the Melbourne and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, a performance of the Schnittke Concerto for Piano and Strings with the Adelaide Symphony, and the presentation of works by Sofia Gubaidulina in the 2006 Melbourne International Arts Festival, including her Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra ‘Introitus.’ Committed to the performance of Australian music, Aura has performed works by Ross Edwards, Helen Gifford, Elena Kats-Chernin, Julian Yu, Katy Abbott, and premiered works by Gordon Kerry and James Rushford. Aura was the winner of the 5th Yamaha Australian Youth Piano Competition in Sydney 2001 and the Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Award in 2000. She was a National Keyboard Finalist in the ABC Young Performer Awards in 2002, 2003 and 2006. Aura attained her Bachelor of Music Performance degree from the Victorian College of the Arts and is currently studying at the Australian National Academy of Music. Her teachers have been Max Cooke and Ian Munro. |
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James Guan was born in October 1990 and showed musical promise from a very early age. He began learning the piano accordion at age 6 and changed to the piano the following year. James attended the Shanghai Conservatory in China from 2000 – 2002, then the Sydney Conservatorium of Music High School from 2003 after moving to Sydney. He began piano studies with Dr Paul Rickard-Ford in 2007 and has been successful in many eisteddfods and competitions around Australia and New Zealand. James completed his final year of high school in 2008 and is now a first year student (B.Mus Performance) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. |
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Adam has recently graduated with First Class Honours from the Queensland Conservatorium, where he studied under Natasha Vlassenko. Adam has won many competitions and scholarships including the Keys Australian Music National Piano Competition, the Queensland Piano Competition, the Australian National Eisteddfod, the South East Queensland Concerto Competition, and numerous awards from the Queensland Conservatorium. In 2007 Adam made his concerto debut with The Queensland Orchestra. In 2008 he performed with the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra and received the prestigious Brisbane Club Award. In 2008, Adam also competed in the Sydney International Piano Competition and earlier this year received a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship to undertake a master’s degree at the Sibelius Academy in Finland. |
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Dami studied at the Young Conservatorium of Music since she was 11 years under the tutelage of Joyce Bennett. Since then, she has made various achievements such as becoming the National Finalist of the Yamaha Youth Piano Competition, winning the Nora Baird Scholarship and the Queensland Piano Competition several times. At the University of Queensland she is undertaking her last year of studies with Pamela Page and Max Olding. Her excellence in both performance and academics were acknowledged when she was awarded the Piano Prize during her first and third years of study and the scholarship for academic excellence in 2007. Currently, she is preparing for her masters in Jazz performance. |
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Ju-Chun is currently completing a Master of Music Studies in Advanced Piano Performance with Oleg Stepanov at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. She was previously offered a scholarship for her Bachelor degree from the Conservatorium. Ju-Chun has also won numerous competitions and scholarships in Taiwan, including the Nantou City prize for piano solo and clarinet solo in 1999, the Kaohsiung City piano solo prize in 2002, the National Sun Yat-sen University piano solo scholarship in 2004, and the Taichung City scholarship in 2005. |
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Jennifer is currently a second year Bachelor of Music student at the University of Melbourne on the Faculty Merit Scholarship. She has been studying piano with Professor Max Cooke since 2006. Her previous teachers include Mei Xiao and Professor Zhaoyi Dan from Shenzhen Arts School where she studied between 2002 and 2005. Jennifer has received a number of awards which include the John Hopkins Music Award in 2007, first prize in the Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Award for 2008, the Lady Turner Exhibition and the Pearis Rodger Piano Faculty Merit Scholarship from the University of Melbourne. |
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Aaron was born in Melbourne and started to learn the piano at the age of 5. He is currently the student of Oleg Stepanov at the Young Conservatorium of Queensland. In 2007, Aaron won first place in the National Final of the Yamaha Youth piano competition in the 13–15 years age category. He has also won the Queensland piano competition, the Nora Baird Bursary, Tyalgum Festival prize and the Brisbane Eisteddfod. Aaron is 16 and currently a Year 12 student at Kenmore State High School. |
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Stephen is currently working towards the Diploma in Music Performance under Stephen McIntyre at the University of Melbourne. Since his arrival in Australia at 15, he has been awarded numerous prizes at competitions, including the Dorothy Glover Memorial Pianoforte Scholarship in 2003. In 2007 Stephen was named the National MBS Fine Music Australia Young Performer of the Year. In 2008 he won first prize in the Geelong Advertiser National Music Competition. In addition to his musical studies Stephen is also undertaking the Bachelor of Biomedical Science and participating in cancer biology research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. |
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Jisook is currently studying piano with Associate Professor Ian Holtham. She is in her final year of a music degree on full scholarship at the University of Melbourne. She began her piano study with her mother at the age of three and progressing quickly, Jisook won numerous competitions. Jisook has studied piano with Young-Sook Kim, Dae-Hyun Kim, and Hye-Kyung Baik in Korea. Before coming to Australia in 2001, Jisook studied at the Korean Arts School (Ye-Won School). In 2002 Jisook was accepted into the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School studying with Glen Riddle and Anne Lewitzka. |
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Ryaed Owens was born in Sydney in 1986. He began learning piano at the age of six and received his A.Mus.A in 2003. In 2004 he commenced the Bachelor of Music degree at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, as a student of Natasha Vlassenko and graduated with Honours in 2008. He is currently studying the Master of Music programme at the Queensland Conservatorium. He has performed at various lunchtime concerts at the Conservatorium and at the Queensland Beethoven Festival. He has also received lessons from Oleg Stepanov. |
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Melbourne-born pianist and composer Will Schmidt is currently undertaking a Master’s degree in performance at the Victorian College of the Arts having completed his Bachelor degree at the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne in 2008. Awards include the Sir Rupert Hamer Arts Scholarship, the Eric and Linda Jullyan Memorial Scholarship, the Ronald William Capon Prize, the Ormond Exhibition, the McConnan Memorial Trust Prize, the inaugural Guy Parsons Award, and the Australian National Piano Award’s Travelling Scholarship. Having passed LMusA with distinction in 2005 he was awarded the VMTA’s Kault Prize for Most Outstanding Diploma candidate. Will performs and records regularly for both ABC FM and 3MBS as both soloist and chamber musician, and in 2008 he performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 1 with the Faculty of Music Orchestra. |
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Oliver commenced piano lessons at the age of four. He has won prizes at the Yamaha national piano competition, 2007 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, ASKM Gold Coast competition among others and was the piano division winner of the 2005 Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards. Oliver has performed at the Tyalgum Festival in NSW, Brisbane City Hall, Friends of the Sydney International Piano Competition (SIPCA) Christmas concert 2005, the UQ Music School concert series as well as with The Queensland Orchestra. Oliver currently studies with Max Olding and Pamela Page at the UQ School of Music where he is undertaking a BMus degree. |
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Australian pianist Primavera Shima received her AMusA. at the age of twelve. She studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Juilliard School Pre-College Division and the Colburn Conservatory of Music. During her studies she received several awards in the City of Sydney Eisteddfod and the Sydney Performing Arts Challenge. In 2001 she reached the state finals for the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Award and performed an hour long live program on 2MBS-FM. She was the recipient of the Werner Baer Memorial Award. Primavera currently studies with Elizabeth Powell. |
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Jonathan Wilson was born in 1985 in Canberra where he commenced piano studies. He is currently undertaking postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with Professor Joan Havill. Jonathan has held several scholarships and won several prizes in Australian competitions including 2nd prize at the Australian National Piano Award. He also won 1st prize in the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition 2009 and Oxford Professional Piano Recital Prize 2008. Jonathan has appeared throughout Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Estonia in solo, concerto and chamber music performances. His performances have also been broadcast several times on ABC Classic FM. Jonathan has received masterclasses and lessons from John Lill, Dmitry Alexeev and Karl-Heinz Kammerling. |
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Elina has recorded for ABC Classic FM, the MBS FM Radio Network and Australian Television. She has performed in the Piano Landmarks Concert Series and most recently was the concerto soloist performing Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with Orchestra Victoria under the baton of Nicholas Braithwaite. She has also performed as a soloist with the University of Melbourne Orchestra conducted by Marco Zuccarini. Her performance of the Liszt concerto was praised in The Age for its “command and grace.” She was a lecturer in graduate performance studies at the University of Melbourne. Elina is studying with Rita Reichman at the Australian National Academy of Music and formerly studied with Stephen McIntyre AM and Elizabeth Powell. |
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Competition - 2009 
