Congratulations and Competition schedule
Gold Stream
Heidi Alina
Nathalie Bounhoure
Mark Cannon
Carl Di Casoli
Shi Chen
Jim Chou
Diana Cusano
Leonard Donadio
Chris Kokkinos
Chia Ying Lee
David Lee
Suo Lee
Jim Lees
Yun Liang
Daniel Matus
Yuka Otohata
Sing Palat
Mike Ring
Carl Rosser
Jonathan Shih
Alexander Stabile
Max Sung
James Tandy
Yoko Taruki
Andrew Throdahl
Rebecca Zhang
Yuchao Zhou
Silver Stream
Kim Chen
Maryam Farshadfar
Minnie Ho
Wen-Yee Ho
Tianyi Huang
Alex Ji
Jan Keith
Vivian Ku
Kenny Kurtzman
Jia Luo
Brian McCorkle
Rosalind Mohnsen
Wei Ling Wang
Wendy Wang
Stephan Ware
2026 COMPETITION SCHEDULE — PRELIMINARY ROUNDS
Longy School of Music, Pickman Hall, 27 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts
All round are FREE and open to the public, but if you wish to make a DONATION, click here.
Thursday 5/28 — Preliminary Round
9-12. Masterclass — Roberto Poli
Sing Palat – Chopin, Fantasie
Yuchao Zhou – Chopin, Sonata No. 2, first two movements
James Tandy - Liszt, Benediction de Dieu Dans La Solitude
Minnie Ho - Chopin, Barcarolle
12:15 Minnie Ho
12:30 Tianyi Huang
12:45 Stephan Ware
1:00 Wendy Wang
1:15 Wei Ling Wang
1:30 Maryam Farshadfar
1:45 Kim Chen
BREAK
2:30 Rosalind Mohnsen
2:45 Kenny Kurtzman
3:00 Jia Luo
3:15 Alex Ji
3:30 Wen-Yee Ho
3:45 Jan Keith
4:00 Brian McCorkle
4:15 Vivian Ku
BREAK
5:00 Suo Lee
5:15 Jonathan Shih
5:30 Yuka Otohata
5:45 Carl Di Casoli
6:00 Chia Ying Lee
6:15 Mark Cannon
Friday 5/29 — Preliminary Round
9-12 Masterclass — Sergey Schepkin
Carl Di Casoli - Bach, Goldberg variations, first half
Kenny Kurtzman - Bach, Partita No. 1 or Schumann Toccatta
Kim Chen - Chopin, Polonaise in C# minor
Maryam Farshadfar - Rachmaninoff, Etude Tableau or Chopin, Ballade No. 1
12:15 Andrew Throdahl
12:30 Leonard Donadio
12:45 Yun Liang
1:00 Mike Ring
1:15 Jim Chou
1:30 David Lee
1:45 Shi Chen
BREAK
2:30 Rebecca Zhang
2:45 Yoko Taruki
3:00 Daniel Matus
3:15 Nathalie Bounhoure
3:30 Diana Cusano
3:45 Jim Lees
4:00 Carl Rosser
BREAK
4:45 Sing Palat
5:00 Alexander Stabile
5:15 Max Sung
5:30 Yuchao Zhou
5:45 Heidi Alina
6:00 Chris Kokkinos
Announcements of the Silver Finalists and the
Gold Semifinalists
Saturday 6/8 — Piano Festival — Second Round of Competition
10-11:45 Members of the Boston BPAA community play classical favorites
12-1:00 Jury Feedback session for competitors
1:15-7:30 Silver stream finals, Gold stream semi-finals
Piano Festival Program — Saturday, May 30, 10 AM
Arthur Dimond Fauré, Nocturne No. 2 in B Major, Op. 33 No. 2
Angela Cheng Beethoven, Pathetique Sonata, mvt. 2 and 3
Debussy, Arabesque No. 2
Dianne Impallaria Rachmaninoff, Preludes
Nancy Kim Chopin, Barcarolle
Daming Gao Schumann, Davidbundlertänze
Sibylle Barrasso Chopin, Preludes
Kevin Schwarz TBD
Erik Lindgren Alec Templeton, Bach Goes To Town [Prelude and Fugue in Swing]
Dana Suesse, Roquette
Richard Einhorn Beethoven, Waldstein Sonata
Robert Berkowitz Chopin, B minor Sonata, mvt. 3 and 4
Robert Finley Chopin, Nocturne Op. 48 No. 1
BIOGRAPHIES
Arthur Dimond is a Brooklyn, NY native, and began taking private piano lessons at the age of six. After moving to Boston for work in the public relations field, he bought his first “serious” grand piano, and explored new musical opportunities—in a chamber music group, lessons at All Newton Music School, and most recently in a NewEngland Conservatory masterclass. During this period, he has performed in several recitals, monthly “soirees” of the Boston Piano Amateurs Association, regular appearances at Symphony Hall’s BSO Café and Cape Cod’s Open Mic Classical, and also participated in BPAA’s 10th and 11th Boston International Piano Competition.
Dianne Impallaria started her musical journey at age 7. Her first teacher was Maria Cristofori. Music has always been a part of her life. She is a graduate of Northeastern University, BA degree in Music, and graduated Magna Cum Laude. She is a member of the Sigma Rho Honor Society. She has studied with therenowned teacher, Jeanette Giguere, at NEC, Myron Press, Jean Alderman at Rivers, Phyllis Moss, a Curtis graduate, Alys Terrien-Queen, and most recently, Alice Wilkinson. She regularly performed at the Museum of Fine Arts Tea Room, and has had several solo recitals. She has also performed in Chamber groups and duo piano. Her journey in music has not ended.
Nancy Kim started piano lessons at age 5 and studied at NEC prep School with Wha Kyung Byan. During high school, she was a soloist with the Concord Orchestra and NEC’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and competed in the Seventeen General Motors Concerto Competition. She studied Biochemistry at Harvard and received her MD from NYU. She is a rheumatologist and worked at MGH before her current job in Clinical Development at Merck.
Daming Gao, a software engineer based in Boston, began his musical journey with piano lessons at age five. Although he paused his formal training during his teenage years to focus on academics, his passion for music never waned. Daming devoted his spare time to studying symphonic repertoires through scores and thousands of CDs. After a nine-year hiatus, he reignited his love for piano and resumed playing. He has since studied with esteemed pianists Krzysztof Jablonski, Diane Hidy, and Aleksandr Polyakov. Today, Daming is an active member of the Boston Piano Amateurs Association, continuing to share his love for music.
Sibylle Barrasso has an MBA from UCLA, is a mother and the author of books, articles and mystery novels. She worked for IBM and Bain, consulting for Fortune 500 companies and high tech start-ups. She studied piano as a child in Germany. After a hiatus of many decades, her love for the piano re-ignited while writing a novel about Rachmaninoff 3rd piano concerto. She studies with Roberto Poli, took piano performance classes at New England Conservatory and Rivers Conservatory, and competed in several Boston and Chicago Amateurs Piano Competitions. She ’s been a regular pianist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra Café since 2010.
Kevin Schwarz works as a Software Engineer for Disney and resides in West Hartford, Connecticut. He has spent numerous hours at the piano since the age of five, studying under the tutelage of Veda Zuponcic and James Giles. Kevin has played with multiple orchestras and chamber groups, including soloing with his hometown West Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and also plays chamber music. He would like to thank his wife, Emily, for all her support, and his two year old son, Theo, for reminding him why music-making is so magical.
Erik Lindgren is a well-known Boston area pianist/composer who performs regularly at the Boston Symphony Orchestra Cafe, art galleries, galas, and with the Bespoke Consort, his chamber quartet. His eclectic and engaging piano repertoire includes Ragtime to Gershwin, Mozart to Satie, and everything in-between. As a commercial composer, Lindgren created jingles and scores for all three networks, PBS, Jordan Marsh, Basketball Hall of Fame, and the Christmas Tree Shops. Lindgren is on the board of the Brockton Symphony Orchestra and the Plymouth Center for the Arts. He is passionate about chai, Irish setters, and tango.
Richard Einhorn was born and raised in Montreal. Richard started taking piano lessons at age 6. During his teenage years, he entered the Quebec Music Festival competitions annually, winning first prize in his age group several years running. At Yale, he first majored in music. After one year as a piano major at Yale’s Graduate School of Music, he took a 23-year break from music to pursue a career in medicine. He returned to piano in 1998, taking lessons and returning to the concert stage. He won the 2003 Boston Piano Competition and performed the Schumann Piano Concerto with an orchestra. Previously, he raised his family in Hamilton, and was in private practice in gastroenterology at Beverly Hospital from 1984 until he retired in 2018.
Robert Berkowitz is a psychiatrist during the day and pianist at night. He was the winner of the 2016 San Diego International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs. Robert was the featured soloist and performed the first Mendelssohn Concerto in San Diego. He also brought back the music of Hungarian Jewish composer Lajos Delej, and the Boston Globe published this story on Dr. Berkowitz and his quest to uncover details of Delej’s short life and his music.
Robert Finley studied piano at Trinity College of Music in London and gained the ARCM diploma. He was a finalist in the Chopin, WIPAC and Colorado competitions. He has played recitals in France, England, Germany, Israel, Poland, Hungary and Argentina, and concertos with orchestras in England and Fort Worth. He is the President of the Boston Piano Amateurs Association. He played the Liszt 1st Concerto with the Boston Civic Symphony orchestra. In March 2022 Robert was a guest soloist in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the Brockton Symphony Orchestra. He was a semifinalist in the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition for Outstanding Amateurs. In October 2023 he gave a recital at Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth, Germany on Richard Wagner's Piano.
Sunday 6/9 — Piano Marathon, 2022 Competition Winner’s Recital, Final Round and Announcement of Winners
9-11:45 Piano Marathon for pianists who did not advance and comments from esteemed piano teacher Tim McFarland
12:00-1:15 2022 Winner’s Recital — Gorden Cheng
1:30-2:30 Jury Feedback session for competitors
2:45-6:00 Gold stream finals and Announcement of Winners
2024 COMPETITION WINNER’S RECITAL — Sunday, 12 Noon
Jeff Li
Jean Sibelius
Valse Triste, Op. 44 No. 1 (arranged for piano)
Johann Sebastian Bach
Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother, BWV 992
Arioso: Adagio – 'Friends Gather and Try to Dissuade Him from Departing'
Andante – 'They Picture the Dangers Which May Befall Him'
Adagiosissimo – 'The Friends' Lament'
Andante con moto – 'Since He Cannot Be Dissuaded, They Say Farewell'
Allegro poco – 'Aria of the Postilion'
'Fugue in Imitation of the Postilion's Horn'
Frederic Chopin
Nocturne in F-sharp Minor, Op. 48 No. 2
Frederic Chopin
Piano Sonata no. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35 “Funeral March”
Grave – Doppio movimento
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (c. 1939)
Lament (1999) Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Arno Babadjanian
Poem (1966)
Paul McCartney
Blackbird (1968) — arr. by Hiromi Uehara (b. 1979)