2022 Semifinalists

Yang Gao was born in Dalian, China. He started to study the piano at the age of four. Mr. Gao entered the Attached Middle School of Shenyang Conservatory of Music Dalian Campus in 2010. Mr. Gao is a prizewinner of several competitions including the first prize of Steinway Junior Piano Competition in China Northeast area, CCM Scholarship Competition, and Matinee Musicale Nancy F. Walker Scholarship Competition. He was a full scholarship participant of Art of the Piano, Eastern Music Festival, and PianoSummer at New Paltz. He is also one of a few students selected as a festival fellow of the 2022 Gilmore Piano Festival.

He has recently performed Beethoven’s first piano concerto with the Camerata New York Orchestra. He will perform at German Consulate General New York, Steinway Hall New York, and Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall during the rest of the season.

He received his bachelor’s degree from College-Conservatory of Music in University of Cincinnati under Awadagin Pratt. He is currently pursuing his master’s degree at the Mannes School of Music with Vladimir Feltsman.

Hilda Huang began her international performing career upon receiving first prize at the Leipzig Bach

Competition at 18 years of age. She is the first American to receive the honor. Since presenting her debut

recital on the Steinway and Sons Prizewinners’ Concert Network at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in

partnership with the Leipzig Bach Archive, she has been invited to perform Bach at the Leipzig Bach

Festival, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Montreal Bach Festival. She is

an advocate for modern performance of historical music, appearing worldwide on modern piano,

fortepiano, and harpsichord.

As a young artist, Hilda’s association with Bach’s music was shared in the documentary film Bach and

Friends alongside Hilary Hahn, Bobby McFerrin, and the Emerson String Quartet. Her interest in Bach’s

music led her to the harpsichord, on which her small hands, flair for articulation, and energetic playing

style encouraged exploration of a wide range of early music. Hilda’s orchestral debuts saw her on both

modern and historical instruments, recording the Bach F minor concerto on the modern piano with Erich

Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra for TELARC (2008) and appearing as harpsichord soloist in

the Bach D Major concerto with Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque.

During the 2020-21 season, Hilda was invited to perform across Europe and the United States in

celebration of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, including invitations to contribute to Carnegie Hall’s

Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycle, work with Kristian Bezuidenhout on fortepiano at Carnegie Hall’s

Beethoven Discovery Week, and appear in Beethoven-Frühling’s Sonata Cycle at the Bösendorfer Salon

of the Vienna Musikverein. Hilda culminates her season with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in

their 2021-22 New Year’s Concerts and in return recital appearances at San Francisco Noontime Concerts.

In addition to performing, Hilda was recently appointed the Community Lead for the piano division of the

classical music education platform, tonebase.

Hilda Huang receives musical guidance from Hung Kuan Chen, Richard Egarr, Richard Goode, John

McCarthy, Anton Nel and Peter Sykes and has appeared in masterclasses with Kristian Bezuidenhout,

Angela Hewitt, and Robert Levin. She has also practiced conducting, singing, and organ-playing. Hilda

currently pursues the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at The Juilliard School. Her studies are supported by

a 2019 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship, the Kingsley Trust Association, and the Celia Ascher Doctoral

Fellowship. Hilda is a 2013 Presidential Scholar in the Arts, a Gold Award recipient from the National

Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts’ YoungArts Week, and a winner of the 2021 Astral National

Auditions. Hilda Huang has been a Steinway Artist since 2021.

Praised by the New York Concert Review as "in a word, superb,” pianist Rixiang  Huang has inspired glowing acclaim from audiences and critics alike for his superb  artistry and passionate, charismatic performances on four continents. Since winning  the first prize at the 12th Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford and Los Angeles International Liszt Piano Competition in 2021, Huang has rapidly established  for himself an international reputation. His first CD album, French Romance, released  in April 2020, has already earned accolades from audiences and critics; Steinway  Artist Rorianne Schrade remarked that his Debussy "reflect[ed] a special sensitivity,  grace, and delicate tonal shading" and his Bartók "may be one of this listener’s most  enjoyable Bartók Sonata performances to date" (New York Concert Review). 

Winner of an impressive array of prizes, Huang was a top prizewinner of the  Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, Dallas International Piano  Competition, New York International Artists Piano Competition, International Piano  Competition La Palma d'Oro in Italy, along with the WPTA International Piano  Competition. 

Highlights of the 2021-22 season include a five city solo recital tour in China; solo  recital at University of Southern California; chamber music performance at Sarasota  Music Festival in Florida; and concerto performance with Chautauqua Symphony  Orchestra. An immersive and versatile soloist, Huang has performed extensively all  over the world in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, Alice Tully  Hall at the Lincoln Center, Universität Mozarteum – Solitär in Austria; Santander 

Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria in Spain; Hamamatsu ACT Concert Hall in Japan; National Center for the Performing Arts and Beijing Concert Hall in China. His  performances have been broadcast by WQXR-FM, Classic FM, Cleveland WCLV 104.9,  Sarasota WSMR 89.1 & 103.9, and Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española. Mr. Huang is represented by Get Classical Music Management. 

As an active soloist, Huang has appeared with leading orchestras around the  world including Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London; China National Symphony  Orchestra; Indonesia National Symphony Orchestra; Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra in New York; and Eastern Music Festival Orchestra in North Carolina. He  has also appeared as a guest artist with acclaimed string quartet Cuarteto Quiroga  and was selected to participate in the Advanced Piano Trio Program by the  acclaimed Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. 

In addition, Huang has been a featured artist at Salzburg Summer Academy  Mozarteum, Orford Music Academy, Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, Chautauqua Music Festival, Art of the Piano at the University of Cincinnati, Piano  Texas, and Pianofest in the Hamptons. He has performed alongside preeminent  conductors such as Jac Van Steen, Joel Smirnoff, Earl Lee, Eric Garcia, and has  performed in master classes with Sergei Babayan, Stephen Hough, Arie Vardi, Veda  Kaplinsky, Dimitry Alexeev, Pavel Gililov, among others. 

Huang is the founder of Empire Music Academy in California. He is currently a  DMA candidate and graduate teaching assistant at the USC Thornton School of Music, studying with prestigious conductor and pianist, Jeffrey Kahane. He is currently a  member of MTNA (Music Teachers National Association). Huang received a Master  of Music in Piano Performance at The Juilliard School, studying with legendary  pianists, Jerome Lowenthal and Matti Raekallio. Previously, he worked with world renowned pianists, Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Paul Schenly at The Cleveland Institute  of Music, where he was awarded the Arthur Loesser Memorial Prize for outstanding  achievement in piano performance. For more information on Huang’s concert  schedule, please visit: http://www.rixianghuangpianist.com/

A multi-faceted pianist hailing from North Carolina, Ryan Jung is currently finishing his graduate studies with Hung Kuan Chen and Jerome Lowenthal at the Juilliard School, having obtained his Bachelor of Music from the New England Conservatory. Ryan is an active performer of repertoire spanning four centuries across North America, with a powerful commitment to the music of the 20th and 21st century. In the past years he has worked closely with composers Nico Muhly, Eric Tanguy, Betsy Jolas and played for notable pianists Shai Wosner and Conor Hanick, among many others. Recent performances include his Lincoln Center solo debut this year in Alice Tully Hall, performing Messaien’s Sept Haikai with Maestro Milarsky. Ryan is currently working on recording the complete Ligeti Etudes. Outside of school, he devotes his free time teaching students in the community, running and hiking, and playing competitive chess hustlers in the park.

Praised for the “power and vividness” of her playing and commit ment to rarely-heard repertoire, Russian-American pianist Aleksandra (Sasha) Kasman is in demand as a soloist and teacher with engagements across the USA, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, France,  and Japan. 

Named a 2019-2020 Young Artist in Residence of NPR’s Perfor mance Today, Ms. Kasman is the First Prize and Audience Award  winner of the 2017 Premio Roberto Melini International Competi tion. She has won first prizes at the NFMC National Collegiate Piano Competition, High Point University Inaugural Piano Competi tion, and IKIF’s Dorothy Mackenzie Awards. Other awards include  top prizes at the Seattle, Wideman, Vladimir Horowitz (Ukraine),  and Arthur Fraser international piano competitions. 

Born into a musical family in Moscow, Ms. Kasman grew up in  Birmingham, Alabama, where she studied piano with her father  and later duo partner Yakov Kasman. Together they have per formed across the USA, Russia, and South Korea. Ms. Kasman is  a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where  she studied music and French and was a member of the Universi ty Honors Program. She holds an M.M. degree from Juilliard,  where she studied with Robert McDonald, and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan (studio of Logan Skelton), where she won the School of Music’s concerto competi tion performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. 

Ms. Kasman made her concerto debuts at thirteen performing Mozart with the Symphonic Orchestra of the National Philharmon ic of Ukraine and the Alabama Symphony. She has since worked  with numerous orchestras in the USA and abroad. Ms. Kasman enjoys a longstanding collaboration with the National Symphony  Orchestra of Ukraine, having performed seven different concertos with the ensemble. In 2018, Ms. Kasman premiered Marc Migo’s Double Concerto for Piano and Violin with the Juilliard Orchestra in New York’s Alice Tully Hall.  

Ms. Kasman appears as a guest artist at the invitation of such fes tivals as International Keyboard Institute and Festival, Southeast ern Piano Festival, Busan International Music Academy, and Pi anoCity Milano, and has given recitals at Steinway Hall in NYC,  Yamaha Ginza Hall in Tokyo, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, and  Salle Cortot in Paris. Ms. Kasman’s most recent international tour  featured eleven solo recitals across Italy, where her playing was  lauded by the press for its “rock solid technique” and “singing  every sentence with an expressive logic of extraordinary  maturity”. In 2022 Ms. Kasman appears as the host of the virtual  semifinal and live final rounds of the PianoArts North American  Piano Competition. Upcoming performances include engage ments with the Dayton Philharmonic and U of M’s University Philharmonia Orchestra, and a European tour alongside violinist  Blake Pouliot and NPR’s Fred Child, as well as an Artist-in-Residence position at pianoSonoma. 

Ms. Kasman is an advocate and experienced performer of contemporary music. She has given premieres of works by Nathan  Daughtrey, Marc Migo, Zachary Detrick, and Eric Mobley (recently  performing a full recital of Mobley’s music). 

Ms. Kasman inherited a passion for teaching piano from her par ents (both graduates of the Moscow State Conservatory and her  own former teachers), and is a dedicated music teacher herself.  In addition to giving private lessons, Ms. Kasman is a Graduate  

Student Instructor at the University of Michigan and formerly a  Teaching Fellow and Gluck Fellow at Juilliard. She has given  masterclasses at Lee University and the Wisconsin Conservatory  of Music and lectured at Bowling Green State University. She es pecially enjoys serving as a PianoArts Fellow since 2015, giving yearly teaching and performing tours to thousands of children in  Milwaukee schools and the community. She teaches in English,  Russian, and French.

Engaging audiences with his charismatic and moving performances, Aaron Kurz enjoys a  burgeoning career. He has captivated audiences across three continents, in venues ranging  from Carnegie Hall in New York to the Palace of Peace and Harmony in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. Mr. Kurz’s performances have been lauded, with Belgium’s Le Soir stating, “We’ll  remember…the musical journeys of a nuanced Aaron Kurz.” 

Mr. Kurz’s playing has also garnered acclaim in competitions, winning top prizes in the New  York International Piano Competition, Los Angeles International Piano Competition, Virginia  Waring International Piano Competition, and World Piano Teachers Association International  Piano Competition, among others. An avid performer, he has played extensively in North  America, Europe, and Asia. In recent years, his playing took him to China, where he had  performing and speaking engagements at the Xi’an Conservatory along with an orchestral  performance.  

After watching classical music videos at the age of two, Kurz became interested in playing the piano. Soon after, he began his studies with Ethel Fang at the Suzuki Institute, and at age nine,  he became a student of Dr. Carol Leone. A year later, Mr. Kurz attended the Mozart Festival in  Vienna and attended the Bösendorfer International Piano Academy, held at the University of  Music. Since then, he has participated in countless festivals, such as the Aspen Music Festival,  the Bowdoin International Music Festival, PianoTexas, and the Gijón International Piano  Festival. He is grateful for receiving additional instruction and guidance from many renowned pianists and pedagogues, including Stephen Hough, Paul Lewis, Yoheved Kaplinksy, Julian  Martin, John O’Conor, and Earl Wild. 

Mr. Kurz believes artists have an obligation to use their craft to improve the world, and he has  worked significantly in this capacity. Alongside concertizing, Kurz spent two years working for  the Van Cliburn Foundation’s “Cliburn in the Classroom,” a program which teaches classical  music principles to children in underprivileged school districts. The goal of the program’s  interactive seminars – to inspire a love of music in children and help educate the next  generation of classical musicians – spoke to him. Through his playing, he hoped to connect with  them and provide an experience they could enjoy and benefit from. He has also worked with  the Lift Music Foundation, which provide mini-grants to help underserved musicians afford the  costs of a musical education. 

Mr. Kurz also wishes to expand the reach of classical music, something he has worked towards  in a greater role since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. To that end, has performed in  various live-streamed series in an attempt to connect with greater audiences around the world.  He also believes in the importance of understanding the music to better appreciate and enjoy  it, and whenever possible, he speaks alongside his programs to help audiences with this goal.  

Mr. Kurz is currently pursuing a Master of Musical Arts at the Yale School of Music, studying  with Boris Berman. He recently completed his Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music under the tutelage of Ian Jones and Norma Fisher. Additionally, Aaron holds a Master of Music  from the Eastman School of Music and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Michigan, 

where he studied with Alexander Kobrin and Logan Skelton, respectively. During his second and  final year at Eastman, Kurz served as Alexander Kobrin’s Teaching Assistant, giving lessons to  undergraduates in the studio. He enjoys both playing and watching sports in his spare time,  never missing a Dallas Cowboys football game.

Alexander Yau, an eminent Australian pianist, has developed himself into a versatile musician incorporating his many musical talents as a chamber musician, vocalist, clarinetist, conductor, composer and music arranger. Pianist Balazs Szokolay describes "his artistic taste is good enough not to make any kind of "show" even in the most brilliant parts of great masterworks". 

His major concerto appearances as soloist include the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Rachmaninoff’s Concerto no.3, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra with Rachmaninoff’s Concerto no. 1 and a major tour with the SBS Youth Orchestra in Australia, with Rachmaninov’s Concerto no. 2. He was the winner of Sydney Conservatorium Concerto Competition, which led him to perform the mighty Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 2 with Eduardo Diazmunoz at the Conservatory Gala Concert to huge reception. He has been invited to perform in the Canberra International Music Festival, prestigious and unique venues such as Phoenix Central Park and City Recital Hall in Sydney, Troldhaugen Grieg's home in Bergen, Alice Tully Hall in NYC, Google Headquarters in the San Jose, Yamaha Ginza in Tokyo, Australian Pavilion at Shanghai Expo, and the Villa Mosconi Bertani on the outskirts of Verona. He has been award numerous prizes such as 6th Prize at the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, 3rd Prize at the Teresa Carreno International Masters Piano Competition and special prizes at the Australian International Chopin Piano Competition. He also won major special prizes at national competitions in Australia, namely the Sydney Kawai Piano Scholarship, Australian National Piano Award and the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition. 

He graduated his masters degree at the Juilliard School under prof. Matti Raekallio. He has performed recitals and chamber ensembles at the Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Centre with the New Juilliard Ensemble and notably at the FOCUS Festivals 2019 and

20 at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, the latter year he gave a US Premiere of a long lost treasured piano sonata (1928) by Grete von Zieritz. He completed his Bachelor of Music piano performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of 

Sydney, with first class honours studying with Daniel Herscovitch and Elizabeth Powell. He is now working as a frequent collaborative artist at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. 

Other than the piano, Alexander studied conducting with Christopher Seamens and Jeffery Milarsky at the Juilliard School. He has made conducting appearances at the Sydney Opera House with the Conservatorium High School Orchestra, Voces Celestium Chorus and Orchestra. He founded the Ole Bohn Chamber Orchestra, comprising of talented young Australian musicians, where he conducted a virtual concert of Brahms’s Symphony no. 3, Mozart’s Concerto no. 23 conducting at the piano and gave the Australian Premiere of young Australian composer, Pavle Cajic’s Octet ‘San’.  

Alexander is also a fine clarinetist, vocalist, composer and music arranger. He studied clarinet with Deborah de Graaff and composition with Dr. Trevor Pearce at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music He was awarded his AMusA diploma for clarinet in 2012 and the James Easton Memorial Award for composition in 2013. His work Grand Passacaglia for Clarinet and piano is performed and recorded by his teacher Deborah de Graaff at the ABC classic fm. His first String Quartet no. 1 “The Asian” will be premiered by Ole Bohn and Friends in 2022. In recent years he turned his focus on music arrangements for multiple musical styles from jazz to tango to lieder orchestrations to film music. He will premiere his newly written virtuosic transcription of “Dance of the Seven Veils from Richard’s Strauss’ Salome” for solo piano in the Charles Wadsworth Competition and Honens Competition. He has also been invited to give lieder recitals whilst accompanying himself on piano at the Sydney Schubert Society in 2022.

Korean-Japanese-American pianist Seho Young has performed in venues across the US, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Millenium Stage at the Kennedy Center, Jordan Hall in Boston, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has given recitals in Japan, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands. He has appeared with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Brockton Symphony Orchestra, Toruń Symphony Orchestra, and the Princeton University Orchestra. In April 2022 he is scheduled to perform in the International Holland Music Sessions New Masters on Tour concert series, playing in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Philharmonic Hall in Bratislava, among other locations. Seho was a semi-finalist at the 2021 Clara Haskil International Piano Competition, and has won top awards at the Five Towns Music and Arts Foundation Competition, Rosalyn Tureck International Bach Competition and Arthur Fraser International Piano Competition. His past mentors include Francine Kay, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Wha Kyung Byun, and William Naboré, and he has received masterclasses from Stanislav Ioudenitch, Tamás Vásáry, Jeffrey Kahane, and Jon Kimura Parker. He has studied at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and The Juilliard School Pre-College, and has participated in the Aspen Music Festival and School, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School, and International Piano Academy Lake Como. He is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Yale University, under the tutelage of Boris Berman.

Other engagements as a pianist include musical theater productions of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years and Pasek & Paul’s Dogfight, and music directing Quipfire! Improv Comedy, which often involved completely improvising full one-hour musicals. He has been part of several jazz and rock bands, has produced mixtapes, and has a sweet spot for Christmas songs and Disney ballads. Some of his favorite non-classical artists include Jacob Collier, Porter Robinson, Earth, Wind & Fire, and MAMAMOO.

As a passionate composer and arranger, Seho has written music for ensembles, film scores, and musical theater, and arranged works for piano, chamber groups, bands, and acapella groups. His compositions have been performed in New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Music Festival. In 2012, he won first place in the Japan International Junior Classic Composition Competition, and in 2010 won an honorable mention for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award. During his undergrad he wrote and orchestrated songs for the Princeton Triangle Club, the oldest touring collegiate musical comedy troupe in the United States, where he was also the conductor of the pit orchestra. Seho is planning several ambitious projects for the near future, including arranging Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story” for solo piano. He has studied composition with Alla Elana Cohen and counterpoint and improvisation with Steve Mackey.

Seho received his Bachelor’s degree in computer science and a certificate in musical performance from Princeton University, where he was the recipient of the Isidore and Helen Sacks Memorial Award. He has worked at robotics startups in the Boston area, focusing on developing software for autonomous vehicle navigation, and enjoys creating websites and mobile apps. Seho is an avid ultimate frisbee player, and has played with Princeton Clockwork, Yale Süperfly, and Boston Big Wrench. He also loves to play chess and watch American football, specifically the New England Patriots.