2017 Competition
Competition Winners
College Jazz Competition
First Place: Theresa Chen
Second Place: Michael Jones
Third Place: Philip Nichols
High School Classical Competition
First Place: Baron Cao
Second Place: Kasey Shao
Third Place: Jimmy Liu
Honorable mention: Mary Nerren
College Classical Competition
Second Place: Soojin Kang
Third Place (Tie): Jocelyn Lee and Oscar Jiang
Guest Artists & Adjudicators
Julian Martin
Pianist Julian Martin, distinguished professor of piano at The Juilliard
School, has been among the most visible pianist/teachers for four decades. Winner
of the 1975 Montevideo International Competition, he also received major prizes
in the Casadeus/Ravel (now Cleveland Int’l), Kapell and Bachauer competitions.
In 1982 he was awarded the Jury Prize for Accompanying at The Tchaikovsky International
Competition. He has since served as juror for international competitions such as
the Iowa International, Montreal, American Pianists’ Foundation, AMSA, Jaen, Valladolid,
Virginia Waring, and Virtuosi/2000 in St. Petersburg. He served as a member of
the original selection committee of the Gilmore Foundation’s in Kalamazoo.
Founder and Artistic Director of Gijon International Piano Festival (Asturias, Spain, 2000-2011), he established The Valencia International Piano Academy in 2011 where he served as Artistic Director until 2014. In addition to his festivals in Spain, Martin has been a regular member of the summer master class roster at The Banff Centre since 2003. He is a regular on the faculties of Aspen Festival and Bowdoin International Summer Music Festival.
His recordings may be heard on the Cymbal d’Amour label and on the Historic Recordings of the National Flute Society. Recent performaces include appearances with the Dover Quartet, Pacifica Quartet, and with violinist Iryna Krechkovsky and cellist Colin Carr at the Orange County Chamber Music Society.
Martin’s teachers include Leon Fleisher, Guido Agosti and Nadia Boulanger. Another formative influence and mentor was the Swiss soprano Flore Wend. Before joining the Juilliard faculty in 1999, he has held teaching posts at Oberlin Conservatory (1982-87) and the Peabody Institute (1987-2004).
Martin has presented master classes in Great Britain, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Venezuela and Israel. Recent projects include performances and classes in Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), a teaching tour of Oregon under the auspices of the Nelly Tholen Fund, at Seoul National University, The Glenn Gould School in Toronto, University of Montreal, McGill University, Conservatoire Superior of Geneva, Seattle International Piano Festival, Lynn University, Lithuania, University of Florida, Southeast International Piano Festival (Columbia, S.C.), San Marcos, Texas, Northwestern University, University of Nebraska (Omaha), Cleveland Institute, and Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.
Accepting his first student at age sixteen, Martin’s career has been driven by a deep love of teaching. His students have won major prizes in the U.S., Europe, Canada, South America and Asia, to cite only a few, Mainichi Shimbun (Tokyo), Dong-A (Seoul), Taipei International, Jose Iturbi, Stepping Stone (Montreal), Ettlingen, five national winners of MTNA, and Koszciuszko. When he is not teaching or playing, he busies himself with a passion for reading or cooking.
Classical Semifinals Judge
Christopher Guzman
Pianist Christopher Guzman regularly performs for audiences throughout North America, Europe and Asia, as soloist and chamber musician. He is a multiple prizewinner in many international competitions, including the Walter M. Naumburg Competition, the Seoul International Music Competition, and the Isang Yun Competition of South Korea. Recently, he garnered the grand prize and several special prizes at the 10th Concours International de Piano d’Orléans of Orléans, France. As a result, he regularly travels to France to perform in Paris and throughout the Loire Valley. His CD of German and Austrian music from the past one hundred years, Vienne et après, was released in March 2014 on the Tessitures label.
Guzman’s career has brought him to such venues as Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, Kennedy Center, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, and others. He performs regularly with some of the world’s most exciting soloists including Ilya Gringolts, Antoine Tamestit, David Fray, and Jeremy Denk, among others. He continually performs with members of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2013, he was a guest artist on the New York Philharmonic’s chamber music series “Philharmonic Ensembles.”
His performances showcase a broad range of styles, from Baroque to the avant-garde. He continues to collaborate with many of the nation’s preeminent new music ensembles; his performances have included world premieres by Donald Martino, Nico Muhly, and Paul Schoenfield. The New York Times hailed his performance of Christopher Theofanidis’s Statues as “coiled” and “explosive.”
Born in Texas, Christopher Guzman began studying piano at age nine and violoncello two years later. He worked primarily with Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald at the Juilliard School, Anton Nel at the University of Texas at Austin, and the late Patricia Zander at the New England Conservatory. He is an assistant professor at Penn State.
