Avery Gagliano

AVERY GAGLIANO (22)
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Current residence: Philadelphia, Pa.

Having made her debut at Carnegie Hall at the age of just 20, 22-year-old pianist Avery Gagliano brings sincerity, emotional depth, and exquisite voicing, alongside a thoughtful and intriguing spirit to the stage. Avery came to international acclaim as the First Prize and Best Concerto Prize winner of the 2020 National Chopin Piano Competition, and as the only American semifinalist at the 18th International Chopin Competition in 2021.

Recent and forthcoming highlights of the 2023/24 season include her debut with the Rochester Symphony and Galveston Symphony, as well as recitals at the Luxembourg Philharmonie, Ehrbar Saal (Vienna), La Grange au Lac (Évian), Paderewski Festival, Miami International Piano Festival, and Sanibel Music Festival. With a particular passion for collaborating with other artists, Avery is also a dedicated chamber musician, regularly sharing the stage with ensembles such as the Balourdet Quartet and the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York.

At the invitation of Sir András Schiff, Avery appeared in recitals throughout Europe in the 2022/23 season as part of his Building Bridges series. She has also, in recent seasons, appeared on renowned concert stages and festivals including the Verbier Festival, Gilmore Festival, Bravo!Vail Festival, Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Salle Cortot, and WQXR Greene Space.

Avery’s debut album, Reflections, was released on the Steinway & Sons label in 2021, with a program at the heart of her music making, from Chopin to Haydn, Schumann, and Adès.

Alongside her successes at the two most highly regarded Chopin competitions, Avery also received the Audience Prize at the 2019 Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and was the winner of the Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, MostArts Festival Piano Competition, and 2019 National YoungArts Competition. She is an alumna of the Verbier Festival & Academy, Gstaad Piano Academy, Lieven Piano Foundation, the Lang Lang International Music Foundation’s Young Scholars Program, a four-year holder of the US Chopin Foundation Scholarship, and has made several appearances on Philadelphia’s WRTI classical radio and National Public Radio’s (NPR) From The Top.

Originally from Washington D.C., Avery currently resides in Philadelphia where she studies at the Curtis Institute with Robert McDonald. She has also studied with Gary Graffman and Jonathan Biss while at Curtis.

https://www.averygagliano.com/

Sasha Kasman Laude

SASHA KASMAN LAUDE (28)
Hometown: Birmingham, Ala.
Current residence: Logan, Utah

Pianist Sasha Kasman Laude is in demand as a soloist and pedagogue with engagements across three continents.

Kasman Laude appears as a guest artist and teacher at the invitation of such festivals as International Keyboard Institute and Festival, Southeastern Piano Festival, Utah State University Summer Piano Festival, Kyiv International Summer Academy (Ukraine), Busan International Music Academy (South Korea), and PianoCity Milano (Italy). She has given solo recitals at such major venues as Steinway Hall in New York City, Yamaha Ginza Hall in Tokyo, Salle Cortot in Paris, and Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. In 2019, she was named a Young Artist-in-Residence of National Public Radio’s Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child. Her playing and interviews have been broadcast on NPR stations nationwide. This year, Kasman Laude performs for the Birmingham Chamber Music Society, Eisendrath Series of Ann Arbor, MI, InConcert Series of Apalachicola, FL, International Keyboard Odyssiad and Festival, Vivace International Music Festival, and pianoSonoma, and is a soloist with the Dayton and Ann Arbor symphony orchestras.

Kasman Laude has triumphed in numerous international competitions; most recently, she became a finalist in the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition (Canada). She has been a soloist with over a dozen symphony orchestras in the USA and abroad, including the Juilliard Orchestra and Calgary Symphony, and has appeared seven times with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. She has worked under the batons of maestros including Jeffrey Kahane, Neal Gittleman, Gregory Vajda, Jeffrey Milarsky, Yaniv Attar, Christopher Confessore, Jacques Cohen, Mykola Dyadura, Nazar Yakobenchuk, and Natalia Ponomarchuk. Kasman Laude is an advocate and experienced performer of contemporary music, premiering works of living composers Stewart Goodyear, Marc Migó, Nathan Daughtrey, Zachary Detrick, and Eric Mobley. In addition to her vibrant solo playing, Kasman Laude is an enthusiastic chamber musician and has collaborated with such distinguished players as Martin Beaver, Blake Pouliot, the Viano and Aeolus String Quartets, and the New York Chamber Players. She and her father Yakov Kasman have been touring as a piano duo for fourteen years.

A native of Moscow, Kasman Laude began her musical studies with her parents, acclaimed pianists and pedagogues Yakov and Tatiana Kasman. She continued studying with her father at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and received an MM degree from the Juilliard School, studying with Robert McDonald. In 2023, Kasman Laude received a DM from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Logan Skelton, won the school concerto competition, and received the School of Music, Theater, and Dance's top graduation honor, the Earl V. Moore Award.

In her leisure time, she enjoys beating her husband in chess and transcribing Soviet film music.

In fall 2023, Kasman Laude joined the faculty of Utah State University as Assistant Professor of Piano. 

https://www.aleksandrakasman.com/

Elliot Wuu

ELLIOT WUU (24)
Hometown: Freemont, Calif.
Current residence: New York City

Elliot Wuu has captured audiences with colorful tones, sensitive musicality and emotional depth in his music. He is a Young Steinway Artist, received the 2018 Gilmore Young Artist award, and is a winner of the Salon de Virtuosi 2021 Career Grant.

Wuu has performed in major venues in the US, France, Italy, Germany, UK, Poland, Romania, and China. In New York City, he has performed at the UN Headquarters, the WQXR Greene Space, and Carnegie Hall. Other concert highlights include the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Aspen and Ravinia Festivals, La Jolla Music Society, Hilton Head Bravo Piano Festival, and Chopin Foundation of the United States. He was also featured on WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase and NPR’s From the Top radio programs.

After making his debut at age 16 with the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra playing Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” Wuu has performed with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Columbia Indiana Philharmonic, Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra, among others. Born in 1999 in Fremont, CA, he began piano at age six. He studied with Yoshikazu Nagai at the San Francisco Conservatory Pre-College, as well as at the Valley Christian High School Conservatory of the Arts. The recipient of a Kovner Fellowship Award at The Juilliard School, he received a BM and MM degrees under the tutelage of Robert McDonald.

https://elliotwuu.com/

Angie Zhang

ANGIE ZHANG (28)
Hometown: Princeton, N.J.
Current residence: Los Angeles

American pianist Angie Zhang, top prize winner at the 2023 Chopin International Piano Competition on Period Instruments and Honens International Piano Competition, is hailed as "warmly expressive, sensitive, and polished" and "a valuable advocate for classical music" by NY Concert Review.

Angie has appeared as soloist with orchestras since she was 10 years old, including with the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Aspen American Academy of Conducting Orchestra, as well as the Juilliard, {oh!} Period Orchestra Poland, Missouri, Milwaukee, Michigan, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Olympia, Portland Columbia Orchestras. She has also performed chamber concerti with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, and Oregon Ballet Theater Orchestra as well as conducted Mozart from the piano at Lincoln Center.

She has worked with conductors such as Fabio Luisi and Jeffrey Kahane, and shared the stage with Itzhak Perlman, Inon Barnaton, and the Dover, St. Lawrence, and Aeolus Quartets. She has performed all over the USA and Canada, as well as in England, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Poland, China, and the Dominican Republic. Festivals she has appeared at include the La Jolla Music Society, Music@Menlo, Bravo! Vail, Tippet Rise, Sarasota, Aspen, Bowdoin, pianoSonoma, and Perlman Music Program.

A fourth generation musician, she is also known for being a dedicated and inspirational teacher. Angie was the youngest at Juilliard to teach in all three divisions (pre-college, college, extension), won her first Assistant Professor position in piano, cello, and theory during her DMA, and has taught at the collegiate level for over 10 years. She actively serves as an adjudicator of competitions and scholarships, pedagogical clinician, lecturer, and ambassador for the arts outside of the music industry. Angie is a Yamaha and Bosendorfer Artist worldwide.

Admitted into The Juilliard School at age ten, where she won the concerto competition a record three times, she has since earned two more piano performance degrees from the school as a Kovner Fellow: her BM with chamber and academic honors and MM. Angie will earn her DMA in Piano Performance and MM in Fortepiano Performance from the University of Michigan in May 2024. She took further courses, most notably in STEAM Pedagogy, in the Barnard-Columbia-Juilliard Exchange Program.

Influential figures include Logan Skelton, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Joseph Kalichstein, Robert Levin, Emanuel Ax, Wu Han, Jeremy Denk, Matthew Bengtson, and Malcolm Bilson.

Next season includes engagements with orchestras and recitals around the world including performances in Krakow and Żelazowa Wola. She will be Distinguished Guest Artist-Faculty at Krakow Piano Summer 2024. Angie is also an accomplished and acclaimed fortepianist and leading American figure in period instruments.

 

 

https://www.angiezhangmusic.org/

 

Michael Davidman

MICHAEL DAVIDMAN (26)
Hometown and Current Residence: New York City

Michael started piano lessons with Efrem Briskin at the Manhattan School of Music precollege and completed his BM degree under the guidance of Robert McDonald, also with mentor and teacher Ford Mylius Lallerstedt at the Curtis Institute of Music, his MM degree at the Juilliard School with renowned pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Stephen Hough. Presently, Michael is finishing an Artist Diploma studying with renowned pianist Stanislav Ioudenich at the International Center for Music (ICM), Kansas City, MO.

A dedicated and disciplined young musician, Michael has gone on to win numerous piano competitions, including the 2022 Long-Thibaud International Piano Competition, third place and Orchestra prize, 2021 American Pianists Awards finalist, winner 2019 Juilliard Gina Bachauer Competition, to mention a few. Davidman also received a four-year scholarship from the Chopin Foundation of the United States.

As soloist, he has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre Symponique de la Garde Republicaine, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Freixenet Encuentro Symphony Orchestra, Symphonicity, Monterey Symphony and Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra to mention a few.

An opera enthusiast from a very young age, Michael delights in uploading historical and rare opera recordings to his YouTube channel called PucciniMD and in accompanying opera singers on special occasions on "opera night" at a New York City restaurant.

https://www.michaeldavidman.com/





 

 

 

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