2024 SEMIFINAL AND FINAL ROUNDS

_{PETER TAKÁCS
Jury Chair}

Hailed by the New York Times as “a marvelous pianist,” Peter Takács has performed widely, receiving critical and audience acclaim for his penetrating and communicative musical interpretations.

Mr. Takács was born in Bucuresti, Romania and started his musical studies before his fourth birthday. After his debut recital at age seven, he was a frequent recitalist in his native city until his parents’ request for emigration to the West, at which point all his studies and performances were banned. He continued studying clandestinely with his piano teacher until his family was finally allowed to emigrate to France, where, at age fourteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire National de Paris.

Upon his arrival in the United States, his outstanding musical talents continued to be recognized with full scholarships to Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, and a three-year fellowship for doctoral studies at the Peabody Conservatory, where he completed his artistic training with renowned pianist Leon Fleisher.

Among the numerous prizes and awards Mr. Takács’ have received are First Prize in the William Kapell International Competition, the C.D. Jackson Award for Excellence in Chamber Music at the Tanglewood Music Center, and a Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. His performances have been hailed by audiences and the press for their penetrating intellectual insight as well as for emotional urgency and communicativeness.

He has performed as guest soloist with major orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, as well as at important summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Music Mountain, Chautauqua Institution, ARIA International, Schlern Music Festival in the Italian Alps, Tel Hai International Master Classes in Israel, Sweden’s Helsingborg Festival, and Musicfest Perugia 2014. Since 2008, he has been a member of the faculty at the Montecito Summer Music Festival in Santa Barbara, CA.  He has performed and recorded the cycle of thirty-two Beethoven Piano Sonatas, which were released on the CAMBRIA label in July 2011. In fall 2015, he will present a series of three recitals at Carnegie Hall-Weill Recital Hall entitled “The Beethoven Experience.”

Mr. Takács’ success as a teacher is attested to by his students’ accomplishments, who have won top prizes in competitions in the United States, Canada, Europe, and South Africa.  They have been accepted at major graduate schools such as the Curtis Institute, Juilliard School, and Peabody Conservatory, among many others.  Mr. Takács has given master classes in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and has been a jury member at prestigious national and international competitions such as PianoArts North American Competition, San Antonio International Keyboard Competition (twice), Canadian National Competition (three times), Cleveland International Piano Competition, and Hilton Head International Piano Competition. Mr. Takács is Professor of Piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he has been teaching since 1976.

Sean Chen, Jury Member

Pianist Sean Chen is hailed as a rising star with a “million-volt smile” and a “formidable set of fingers” (Dallas Morning News). An American performer of tremendous depth who is also a composer and arranger, Mr. Chen’s powerful triple-play has already earned him three high-profile awards and an impressive following. In 2013 Mr. Chen won the American Pianists Association’s DeHaan Classical Fellowship, one of the most lucrative and significant prizes available to an American pianist. As the first American to reach the finals of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition since 1997, he went on to win the Bronze Medal in 2014, and then became the 2015 recipient of the $100,000 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship.

Acclaimed for his “ravishing tone and cogently contoured lines” (Gramophone), Mr. Chen has appeared as soloist on return engagements with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, made debuts with the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra at the Kimmel Center and with the orchestras of Milwaukee, Phoenix, and many others in the United States  and South America.

A collaborative artist, Sean Chen is held in high esteem by such conductors as Gerard Schwarz, who spoke of his Bartok Concerto No. 2 as “stupendous” and said, “He brought this piece to life in a totally convincing way, and for me it was the best performance of this concerto that I have ever heard.” In addition to Maestro Schwarz, Sean Chen has worked with Leonard Slatkin, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Nicholas McGegan, and many others.

Mr. Chen has performed solo and chamber music recitals in  Jordan Hall in Boston, the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, the Lied Center in Lincoln, New York City’s SubCulture, The Smithsonian, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and dozens of other venues throughout the world.

Now serving as Millsap Artist in Residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, Sean Chen received undergraduate and graduate degrees at Juilliard. At the Yale School of Music, he earned his Artist Diploma as a George W. Miles Fellowship recipient, and a student of Hung-Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone.

Steinway & Sons released his solo album, La Valse, recorded as part of his substantial APA prize, prompting Vivien Schweitzer of the New York Times to praise his “alluring and colorfully shaded renditions” of Scriabin and Ravel. International Piano magazine has named Chen “One To Watch.”

Mr. Chen resides in the Kansas City area with his wife, Betty, a violinist in the Kansas City Symphony, and their daughters Ella and Maeve.

Aaron Wunsch, Jury Member 

Aaron Wunsch enjoys a multifaceted career as a performer, presenter, and educator.  He has performed on concert stages throughout the US, Europe and Asia, including in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Duke’s Hall in London, at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and as soloist with symphonies in the US and China. Lauded for his “masterful” chamber music performances (Hartford Courant), he has appeared at the Norfolk, Bowdoin, Sarasota, Great Lakes and Yellow Barn chamber music festivals, collaborating in performance with cellist Lynn Harrell, clarinetists Charles Neidich and Anthony McGill, violinists Miranda Cuckson and Jennifer Koh, and the Miró and Parker Quartets, among others.  He has worked closely with many composers, including Thomas Adès, Nico Muhly, and Kaija Saariaho and has performed new works by Saariaho and John Adams during Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music. His performances have frequently been heard nationally on Performance Today.

He studied at Yale University (B.A., cum laude), the Mozarteum in Salzburg (Fulbright Fellowship) and at the Juilliard School (M.M. and D.M.A.). He was formerly Assistant Professor of Piano at William Paterson University and is currently the Director of Keyboard Studies and Piano Curriculum at Juilliard, where he teaches piano literature, graduate studies, chamber music, and directs Juilliard PianoScope, the Piano Department’s performance series. He gives piano master classes and lectures at conservatories and universities in the U. S., Europe, and Asia, and he was 2010 Visiting Professor at Shanghai Normal University. His awards for written work in musicology include the Henry Hart Rice Prize and the Richard F. French Prize. His principal teachers in piano included Peter Frankl, Karlheinz Kämmerling, and Robert McDonald, and he also worked with Andras Schiff, Jerome Lowenthal, and Claude Frank; his history and theory studies were with Allen Forte, Robert Morgan, L. Michael Griffel, and Maynard Solomon.

He is Artistic Director of both the acclaimed Music Mondays concert series in New York City and Co-Artistic Director of the Skaneateles Festival, in the Finger Lakes.