Concerts Around Town

Recipient of the 2011 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Chinese-American pianist Chu-Fang Huang has won enthusiastic responses from audience and critics alike in extensive orchestral and recital appearances throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Right after being named a finalist in the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2005, Ms. Huang won First Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Besides being its first Chinese winner, Ms. Huang also swept every special prize the competition offered: “Best Performance of Beethoven’s Work”, “Best Performance of Chopin’s work”, and “Audience’s Favorite Award”. In the same year, Ms. Huang won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and was awarded the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Embassy Series Prize, the Lied Center of Kansas Prize, the Mortimer Levitt Piano Chair of YCA, and the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women Artists.

Since her Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall in 2005. Ms. Huang has given recitals at Carnegie Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Kravis Center in Palm Beach, and major cities throughout the US including Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Fort Worth, Miami, San Francisco, and Cambridge. In Europe, she has been re-engaged three times at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, as well as the Klavier Festival in Germany and the Chopin Festival in Krakow. She has also performed at the Sydney Opera House in Australia, Suntory Hall in Japan, and the Beijing Zhong-Shan Music Hall, Fujian National Auditorium, and Liao-ning Grand Opera House in China.

Right after being named a finalist in the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2005, Ms. Huang won First Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Besides being its first Chinese winner, Ms. Huang also swept every special prize the competition offered: “Best Performance of Beethoven’s Work”, “Best Performance of Chopin’s work”, and “Audience’s Favorite Award”. In the same year, Ms. Huang won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and was awarded the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Embassy Series Prize, the Lied Center of Kansas Prize, the Mortimer Levitt Piano Chair of YCA, and the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women Artists.

Ms. Huang began studying piano at the age of seven and received a full scholarship to study at the Shenyang Music Conservatory’s pre-college division at the age of twelve. Upon immigrating to the States at fifteen, Ms. Huang made her U.S. recital debut at the La Jolla Music Society’s Prodigy Series. After earning her Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Claude Frank and Gary Graffman, she received her Master of Music degree as well as the prestigious Artist Diploma from the Juilliard School, as a pupil of Robert McDonald. Ms. Huang currently resides in New York City when not traveling, and serves as the artistic director of the Ameri-China International Music Foundation – a nonprofit organization devoted to bringing closer the musical cultures of the two great nations. Her dedication has been widely acknowledged by the industry as well as national officials. Ms. Huang was named one of Ten Outstanding Chinese Americans alongside Yao Ming and Wendi Deng, and has been invited to give performances and lectures at both the Embassy of China in Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Engage, inspire, connect. These are the pillars guiding world-renowned pianist and Steinway artist Yaron Kohlberg every day. Kohlberg ignites audiences through traditional and nontraditional performances, develops creative programming, and supports emerging artists, making him a leader and innovator in the world of classical music.

While those crowds are often found in famous venues (Carnegie Hall, the Kremlin, Beijing’s Forbidden City, Kennedy Center, and Mexico City’s Bellas Artes are some of the iconic auditoriums he has performed as soloist), Kohlberg reaches beyond the concert-going public to engage new audiences with classical music in atypical places – a street piano in Singapore, a hotel lobby in Marrakech, a community center in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. It is in these unexpected performances where he crosses cultural divides and awakens listeners to new experiences.

Kohlberg often combines storytelling and transcriptions of popular tunes with traditional classical masterpieces, thrilling audiences and critics with his virtuosity and unique quality of sound. NPR raved, “When the music ends, if you’re not deeply moved by the depth of Kohlberg’s insight, you might want to check your pulse.” Audience favorites include Carmen, the theme songs from the Pulp Fiction and Mission Impossible soundtracks, “Hava Nagila” and the children’s song “The Most Beautiful Girl in Kindergarten.”

Winner of 10 international prizes and the 2007 silver medalist of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Kohlberg is President of Piano Cleveland, the organizing body of the CIPC. Original programming he has co-created includes the upcoming Artist Development Program, an enrichment and professional development program for top-tier young pianists; The Listening Series, an in-person and virtual event that takes audiences from the couch to the concert hall as musicians take a deep dive into their work; and Virtu(al)oso, a global piano competition that raised more than $75,000 to support pianists during the pandemic. Articles about his creative ideas have been featured in several of the best classical music publications, including Pianist Magazine, Musical America, and The World of Piano Competitions magazine.

Kohlberg and his friend Bishara Haroni comprise the successful Israeli-Palestinian group, Duo Amal. They have performed worldwide, including at Geneva’s UN Hall, a remarkable example of the power of music to overcome cultural differences. The Vatican took notice, and invited them to perform for the Pope in 2020, which has been postponed due to Covid.

Forging connections through collaboration is a hallmark of Kohlberg’s work. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestras, the Beijing and Chengdu Symphony Orchestras, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and the Palermo Teatro Massimo Orchestra in Italy, working with conductors Thomas Sondergard, Jahja Ling, Roman Kofman, En Shao, Steven Byess and Ryan McAdams. He has also collaborated with the Limón Dance company, cellists Toke Møldrup and Nicholas Altstaedt, pianists Yeol Eum Son and Dong Hyek Lim, choreographer and dancer Jin Xing, rock star Shlomi Shaban, composer Alexey Kurbatov and the Ariel String Quartet. He was the artistic director of a cover band concert tour of his beloved alternative rock group, Radiohead.

In addition to co-leading Piano Cleveland, performing, and serving on international competition juries, Kohlberg also lectures and conducts masterclasses at leading institutions around the world. He speaks six languages, including Mandarin Chinese, has lived on three continents, and traveled to 85 countries. Immersing himself in other cultures and forging strong relationships with people from all over the world has inspired Kohlberg to dedicate his life to sharing the beauty of his greatest passion, the piano.

Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 1999 and embarked on a multifaceted career that continues to extend across five continents. A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris, France, Antonio Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Mr. Pompa-Baldi appears at the world’s major concert venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Milan’s Sala Verdi, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Shanghai’s Grand Theatre, and Paris’ Salle Pleyel, to name a few. He has collaborated with leading conductors including Hans Graf, James Conlon, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Theodore Kuchar, Benjamin Zander, Louis Lane, and Keith Lockhart. He has performed with ensembles and colleagues such as Takacs String Quartet, Alison Balsom, Sharon Robinson, and principals of the Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Juilliard Quartet, among others.

Mr. Pompa- Baldi has recorded over 30 CDs to date, for various labels including Centaur Records, Harmonia Mundi, Steinway, TwoPianists, Azica, and Brilliant Classics. Antonio Pompa-Baldi is a Steinway Artist since 2003. He is often invited to judge international piano competitions such as the Cleveland, Hilton Head, E-Competition (Minneapolis), BNDES Rio de Janeiro, and Edward Grieg (Bergen), among many others. He serves as president of the jury and artistic advisor for the San Jose International Piano Competition since 2006. Pompa-Baldi is on the Piano Faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music.

In 2015, Pompa-Baldi founded the Todi International Music Masters festival, of which he is also Artistic Director and Faculty Member. This summer festival takes place every August in the beautiful Italian town of Todi. It features 15 concerts in 15 days, with internationally renowned faculty members, and students from all over the world.