2023 Winter Competition Winners - Piano, Group C-F

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 Michelle Jiang, 11 ans, écolière dans Lycée Français de Shanghai.  Excellentes notes à l’école. Apprendre le français,l'anglais, l'espagnol  et l'allemand. Apprendre le piano dès l’âge de quatre ans et le violon  dès l’âge de cinq ans. 

 Kylie is a fifth grader from Chino Hills, California. She has been  studying piano with direction of Eun Jung Lee since she was 6 years old.  Under her direction she has been able to explore her passion for piano  and received multiple awards.  Among others, she received 1st place at the 2022 MTAC Diamond bar winter  festival, 1st place at the 2022 Southwestern youth music festival in  the category of Baroque open solo and Mozart complete sonata and 2nd  place at the 2022 MTAC Diamond Bar spring festival. In previous years,  she received 3rd place at the 2020 Southern California youth music  festival in the category of open solo ages under8, 3rd place at 2020  MTAC Diamond Bar Winter festival and 1st place at the 2021 MTAC Diamond  Bar spring festival. Through the musical training, Kylie firmly believes that music can  connect and remove barriers between people despite the different  languages spoken, and someday in future, she wishes to give back to  community what she has learned from music.  Besides piano, she loves to explore nature, travel through national  parks and rivers, plays with her dog, reading books about dragons and  warriors and fishing at the lakes. 

  Andrew Lee, age 12, has been playing piano since he was six years old  and currently studies with Yi-Fang Wu. Andrew has had numerous piano  competition wins and finalist awards, concert positions and state  honors.  He is a Pre-College Academy student at the San Francisco  Conservatory of Music.  In his free time, Andrew enjoys playing  competitive tennis, golf and sometimes video games. 

 Lucas Ou is passionate about playing the piano. Since age 6, he has been  learning piano taught by Dr. Renpeng Peter Dong. Since then, he has  participated in several international piano competitions and won several  awards. On July 27th, 2021, he won 1st prize of the 2021 “Golden  Classical Music Awards” International Competition, Junior Category, and  was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall during the Christmas in 2021. On  Feb 22nd, 2022, he won 1st Prize Winner at 2022 International Music  Competition “London '' Grand Prize Virtuoso, selected to perform at the  Elgar Room, Royal Albert Hall on Wed, April 20, 2022. In 2022, He passed  the ABRSM Grade 8 Piano Exam. Lucas is also committed to serving the  community. He volunteered to play the piano for his middle school’s “6th  grade end of year celebration” and local community’s “Celebrating the  Mid-Autumn Festival and United Nations Peace Concert”. He received  overwhelmingly positive responses from his audience.  

 Hi! My name is Dhevan Lotama.

I am 11 years old. I love music, especially the piano.

I have been studying piano since I was 6 years old at Aretha Music School.

While in music school, I have learned from several teachers with different personalities.

This is an interesting experience for me in developing my musical abilities.

Apart from music school, I started to learn playing classical and pop songs outside of music school material.

My goal is to become a famous musician and be able to inspire many people.

It is very important for me to manage the time between school lessons and playing music to achieve my goals. 

 Ukrainian-American pianist Daniel Beal has been performing many years.  He has been a guest artist with two orchestras, and participates in  local and regional competitions, becoming a national finalist in the  2022 MTNA Piano Performance Competition. He has won state MTNA  competitions two years in a row, the 2020 SMTA State Recitalist  Competition, and has numerous 1st place awards in the Spokane Piano  Competition. Daniel has been awarded over a dozen gold medals at  Musicfest Northwest at Gonzaga University, including gold medals for  concertos at ages nine and ten. He is grateful to his long-term  instructor Ms. Miller for her support. Daniel volunteers at retirement  centers and the public library, and has been heard on Spokane Public  Radio many times. He believes classical music is an irreplaceable part  of our culture today. 

 Veronica Kuo started playing the piano from the age of 5 and decided to  learn the cello when she was 8 years old. She is currently a freshman in  high school and has participated in many competitions such as the 2022  IMAS Competition 9th Annual Talented Young Musician Olympia Competition  for piano(Gold prize) and the 2021 Pelican International Music  Competition(1st prize in both piano and cello). She has also passed the  Certificate of Merit Level 10 piano Level 9 cello exam and won State  Honor. Veronica has also won first place in the Kings Peak 2022 spring  competition. She has participated in her school orchestra since middle  school and is currently the principal cellist at her high school and  performed at Midwest with her school orchestra in December 2022.  

 Reina Hewes began piano lessons at the age of five and currently studies  with Dr. Deborah H. How.  Reina has been a winner at many  international, state and local piano competitions.  As a winner of the  Elite International Music Competition and the Golden Classic Music  Awards, Reina had the honor of performing at Weill Recital Hall at  Carnegie Hall in 2019 , 2020 and 2022.  Reina has also performed with  the Los Angeles Doctor Symphony Orchestra on two occasions, first, as  the  winner of the Robert Turner Piano Concerto Competition and second,  as a guest soloist.  Reina participates in the RCM Certificate Program  and the MTAC Evaluations for both piano and flute and plays on her high  school tennis team. 

 I am very happy to be able to participate in this competition, it is my honor, I will continue to improve and work hard 

 Hello everyone, my name is Liu Yixuan. I am from Hunan, China. I studied  at the Belarusian State Academy of Music. I am very happy to be in the  finals. This is a great experience for me.