Jury

Competition Jury

Gloria Chien terrence Wilson Stephen wogaman Susan Wadsworth

Preliminary Jury

henry kramer Navah Perlman Susan wadsworth

Pianist Gloria Chien has been picked by the Boston Globe as one of the Superior Pianists of the year, “… who appears to excel in everything.” Richard Dyer praises her for “a wondrously rich palette of colors, which she mixes with dashing bravado and with an uncanny precision of calibration…Chien’s performance had it all, and it was fabulous.”

Gloria made her orchestral debut at the age of 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has appeared as a soloist under the batons of Sergiu Comissiona, Keith Lockhart, Thomas Dausgaard, Irwin Hoffman, Benjamin Zander, and Robert Bernhardt. She is a prize winner of the World Piano Competition, Harvard Musical Association Award, as well as the San Antonio International Piano Competition, where she also received the prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Work. Gloria has presented solo recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Harvard Musical Association, Sanibel Musical Festival, Caramoor Musical Festival, Salle Cortot in Paris, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan.

An avid chamber musician, Gloria has been the resident pianist with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston since 2000, a group known for its versatility and commitment to new music. Boston Herald praises her for “ [playing] phenomenally.” She recently recorded with clarinetist, Anthony McGill. Her CD with violinist, Joanna Kurkowicz, featuring music of Grazyna Bacewicz was released on Chandos Records. The International Record Review writes, “[the violinist] could ask for no more sensitive or supportive a pianist than Gloria Chien.” Harmonie Magazine writes, “…but it would be unfair not to mention the pianist, who is accompanying the soloist in an absolutely responsive, impressive and confident way. She is more than an accompanist — rather, she is an equivalent partner to the soloist.” The Strad praises her for “super performances…accompanied with great character.” She also received fantastic reviews in Gramophone, American Record Guide, and Muzyka 21. Gloria has participated in such festivals as Chamber Music Northwest, Music Academy of the West, Verbier Music Festival, and Music@Menlo, where she was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute in 2010 by Artistic Directors, David Finckel and Wu Han.

Her recent performances include collaborations with the St. Lawrence, Miró, Borromeo, Daedalus and Jupiter String Quartets, David Shifrin, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Joseph Silverstein, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, Wu Han, Rob Kapilow, Paul Neubauer, Roberto Diaz, Andres Diaz, Sharon Robinson, James Ehnes, Nai-Yuan Hu, Bion Tsang, Soovin Kim, Carolin Widmann, Edward Arron and Anthony McGill.
In fall of 2009, Gloria launched String Theory, a chamber music series at the Hunter Museum of American Art in downtown Chattanooga, as its founder and artistic director.
Gloria began playing the piano at the age of five in her native Taiwan. She has a doctor of musical arts, a master’s and an undergraduate degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Her teachers have included Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun. Gloria is an Associate Professor at Lee University in Cleveland, TN, and is a member of the prestigious Chamber Music Society Two of Lincoln Center. Gloria is a Steinway Artist.

Acclaimed by the Baltimore Sun as “one of the biggest pianistic talents to have emerged in this country in the last 25 years” pianist Terrence Wilson has appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Washington, DC (National Symphony), San Francisco, St. Louis, and with the orchestras of Cleveland, Minnesota, and Philadelphia and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Conductors with whom he has worked include Christoph Eschenbach, Alan Gilbert, Neeme Järvi, Jesús López-Cobos, Lawrence Renes, Robert Spano, Yuri Temirkanov, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Gunther Herbig and Michael Morgan.

Abroad, Terrence Wilson has played concerti with such ensembles as the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in Switzerland, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He has toured with orchestras in the US and abroad, including a tour of the US with the Sofia Festival Orchestra (Bulgaria) and in Europe with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yuri Temirkanov.

An active recitalist, Terrence Wilson made his New York City recital debut at the 92nd Street Y, and his Washington, DC recital debut at the Kennedy Center. In Europe he has given recitals at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Lourvre in Paris, and countless other major venues. In the US he has given recitals at Lincoln Center in New York City (both Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall), the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, and for the La Jolla Chamber Music Society. An avid chamber musician, he performs regularly with the Ritz Chamber Players. Festival appearances include the Blossom Festival, Tanglewood, Wolf Trap, with the San Francisco Symphony at Stern Grove Park, and an appearance with the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra on July 4, 2015 before an audience of over fifteen thousand.

In the 2019-2020 season, Wilson made his Boston (MA) recital debut at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to critical acclaim. In March, 2020, Wilson substituted for Andre Watts on short notice, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Detroit Symphony. 

During the 2020-2021 season, Terrence Wilson appeared as a guest soloist with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in a video produced by the NJSO, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 467. He also appeared virtually on numerous online platforms due to Covic-19 pandemic restrictions. His first post-pandemic live performance was with the Brevard Symphony Orchestra (Melbourne, FL). Wilson was also a guest of the St. Augustine Music Festival where he played Beethoven's "Ghost" Trio with members of the St. Augustine Music Festival during an afternoon concert, followed by a performance of Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto later that evening at the St. Augustine Amphitheater. He also adjudicated in the World Bach Competition and the Music International Grand Prix and served on the faculty of the Brevard Music Center's Virtual Piano Institute in July. Also in July, he conducted a virtual masterclass for students of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) and in January, 2022, he will serve on the jury of the Heida Hermanns Piano Competition.

The 2021-2022 season will bring Wilson back as soloist with the Alabama and Nashville Symphony Orchestras. He will also make his debuts with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, the Boulder Philharmonic, and the Roanoke Symphony. In the fall, the Chamber Music Society of Detroit will present Wilson with the Escher Quartet performing Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor. He also appears at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in April 2022 performing music by Julius Eastman and Clarence Barlow. In the spring of 2021, he was appointed to the piano faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Terrence Wilson has received numerous awards and prizes, including the SONY ES Award for Musical Excellence, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Juilliard Petschek Award. He has also been featured on several radio and television broadcasts, including NPR’s “Performance Today,” WQXR radio in New York, and programs on the BRAVO Network, the Arts & Entertainment Network, public television, and as a guest on late night network television. In 2011, Wilson was nominated for a Grammy in the category of “Best Instrumental Soloist With an Orchestra” for his (world premiere) recording with the Nashville Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero of Michael Daugherty’s Deus ex Machina for piano and orchestra - written for Wilson in 2007.

Terrence Wilson is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky. He has also enjoyed the invaluable mentorship of the Romanian pianist and teacher Zitta Zohar. A native of the Bronx, he resides in Montclair, New Jersey.

Stephen Wogaman, pianist, has performed as a recitalist, chamber musician and teaching artist since the early 1980’s. He was the founding pianist of the Whitney Trio, which made its debut in a critically acclaimed live radio broadcast concert in 1989 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Other performances include the Phillips Collection in Washington, the Weis Center for the Arts at Bucknell University, the Vassar College Chamber Music Series, and residencies in Costa Rica and Spain. Chamber colleagues have included members of the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Dallas Symphony, and the Orquestra Sinfonica de Gallicia. He was trained at the Eastman School of Music and the Indiana University School of Music, where he completed a Doctor of Music degree under the legendary chamber pianist, Menahem Pressler.

In May 2011 Stephen Wogaman became the fourth president of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. For seven years before that he served for seven years as the chief executive of two orchestras, establishing new chamber music series in both. He was Executive Director of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, Allentown, Pennsylvania and its historic Symphony Hall. More recently, he was president and CEO of the Canton Symphony Orchestra in Canton, Ohio. In the 1990’s, Steve and his wife, Michele, developed New Performing Arts, a non-profit music outreach organization that has reached an audience of nearly two million Kentucky children with live performing arts programs in their schools. He also developed programmatic partnerships with the nation’s classical music training institutions, including the Eastman School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, Indiana University Opera Theater, the New World Symphony and others.

Susan Wadsworth founded Young Concert Artists, Inc. in 1961, a unique non‑profit organization which has discovered and launched the careers of many of today’s most illustrious musicians including pianists Murray Perahia, Emanuel Ax, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Jeremy Denk, violinists Pinchas Zukerman and Anne Akiko Meyers, soprano Julia Bullock, and composers Kevin Puts, Andrew Norman, and Mason Bates, to name a few. 

In 1993, at the request of Isaac Stern, Young Concert Artists presented a performance by YCA artists at the White House for President and Mrs. Clinton, in an evening honoring the recipients of the National Medal of Arts.  In 2005, Mrs. Wadsworth accepted the Angel Award presented to Young Concert Artists by the International Society of Performing Arts Administrators.  Mrs. Wadsworth has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the Mannes College, the Manhattan School of Music, and the New England Conservatory; and honored with the Frances Riker Davis Alumnae Award of the Brearley School, and as a Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France. She enjoys serving on competition Juries, including concerto competitions at the Peabody Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Yale School of Music.

Susan Wadsworth was born in New York City and studied piano and violin from an early age.  She earned a BA in English from Vassar College, continuing piano and violin studies.  Mrs. Wadsworth is married to the pianist and Artistic Director Charles Wadsworth.

Preliminary Jury

Praised by The Cleveland Classical Review for his “astonishingly confident technique” and The New York Times for “thrilling [and] triumphant” performances, pianist Henry Kramer is developing a reputation as a musician of rare sensitivity who combines stylish programming with insightful and exuberant interpretations.  In 2016, he garnered international recognition with a Second Prize win in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Most recently, he was awarded a 2019 Avery Fisher Career Grant by Lincoln Center – one of the most coveted honors bestowed on young American soloists.

Kramer began playing piano at the relatively late age of 11 in his hometown of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. One day, he found himself entranced by the sound of film melodies as a friend played them on the piano, inspiring him to teach himself on his family’s old upright. His parents enrolled him in lessons shortly thereafter, and within weeks, he was playing Chopin and Mozart.

Henry emerged as a winner in the National Chopin Competition in 2010, the Montreal International Competition in 2011 and the China Shanghai International Piano Competition in 2012.  In 2014 he was added to the roster of Astral Artists, an organization that annually selects a handful of rising stars among strings, piano, woodwinds and voice candidates. The following year, he earned a top prize in the Honens International Piano Competition.  

Kramer has performed “stunning” solo recital debuts, most notably at Alice Tully Hall as the recipient of the Juilliard School’s William Petschek Award, as well as at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.  At his Philadelphia debut, Peter Dobrin of The Philadelphia Inquirer remarked, “the 31-year-old pianist personalized interpretations to such a degree that works emerged anew. He is a big personality.”  

A versatile performer, Kramer has soloed in concertos with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others, collaborating with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Gerard Schwarz, Stéphane Denève, Jan Pascal Tortelier and Hans Graf. Upcoming performances in the 2019-20 season include a return engagement with the National Orchestra of Belgium performing Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4, as well as debuts with the Columbus and Hartford Symphony Orchestras playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

His love for the chamber music repertoire began early in his studies while a young teenager.  A sought-after collaborator, he has appeared in recitals at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest.  His recording with violinist Jiyoon Lee on the Champs Hill label received four stars from BBC Music Magazine. This year, Gramophone UK praised Kramer’s performance on a recording collaboration (Cedille Records) with violist Matthew Lipman for “exemplary flexible partnership.”  Henry has also performed alongside Emmanuel Pahud, the Calidore and Pacifica Quartets, Miriam Fried, as well as members of the Berlin Philharmonic and Orchestra of St. Luke’s.  

Teaching ranks among his greatest joys.  Since 2018, Kramer has held the L. Rexford Distinguished Chair in Piano at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia.  Throughout his multifaceted career, he has also had positions at Smith College and the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory of Dance and Music.

Kramer graduated from the Juilliard School, where he worked with Julian Martin and Robert McDonald. He received his Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Yale School of Music under the guidance of Boris Berman.  His teachers trace a pedagogical lineage extending back to Beethoven, Chopin and Busoni. Kramer is a Steinway Artist.

Navah Perlman is building an important career as a solo pianist and chamber player. Like her father, the illustrious violinist Itzhak Perlman, she has had to surmount a physical disability to do so. With violinists Toby and Itzhak Perlman as parents, it was natural that Navah was drawn to music and performing. She began asking for piano lessons at the age of five, but they waited a year for her hands to grow before granting that wish.

From the age of 11, Navah began playing in public. By the time she was ready to begin college, she had already been signed by her father's management agency. She recognizes that being her father's daughter opened the door for her but, as she told Providence, RI, Journal Bulletin reporter Channing Gray in 1997, her mother warned her that people would do her a favor once, but thereafter she would have to earn her own way. "That was something I had to make peace with when I was about 14, otherwise I would have tortured myself."

Navah's bookings were usually in smaller towns, but they were consistent. By the time she enrolled in Brown University, as a freshman at the age of 18, she was gone about every two weeks to play a concert or recital.

She had elected to go to Brown rather than Juilliard because music had been at the center of her studies all her life, and this was, she realized, her last opportunity to get a liberal arts education. But then, she started having trouble moving her shoulders outward to reach notes at either end of the keyboard. At first, she thought this problem was minor and cancelled her next performance. But by the time summer came around and she was playing at Aspen, the pain and swelling in her joints had affected her knees, neck and, most worrisomely, her wrist, which affected her playing. The family suspected Lyme disease, but Itzhak's friend Dr. Allen Steere (one of the discoverers of the cause of the disease) ruled that out. Instead, the culprit was a rare form of rheumatoid arthritis. She was given a regimen of drugs to control it and told to keep away from the piano. Now her choice of a liberal arts college became a lifeline. She threw herself into her arts history curriculum. By the time she had graduated, she had recovered enough to begin cautiously practicing, ten minutes a day to start. Ultimately, she regained her technique. Fortunately, the disease had not reached her fingers. Although she had avoided performing with her famous father before, now, she worked back into concert life with his help. Being scheduled to perform with Itzhak Perlman overcame a confidence problem: She was worried that, performing on her own, she might cause disappointment if she had to cancel. But, sharing the billing with her father meant that if she did cancel, all that would happen would be that the audience would have a longer Itzhak Perlman concert to enjoy. After two years, she realized that her health was reliable enough that she could perform on her own, and the two Perlmans have mainly dropped their double appearances, though they do appear together for benefit concerts. Navah has co-founded a piano trio with violinist Kurt Nikkanen and cellist Zuill Bailey, and they play chamber concerts regularly, frequently performing the Beethoven Triple Concerto with orchestra. She lives in New York with her husband, Robert Frost.