2021 National Young Virtuosi Recital Competition

Winners’ Recital

Jury Members

YI-HENG YANG

Pianist Yi-heng Yang was born in Iowa City, Iowa. Awards she has received include the Harvey Fellowship from the Mustard Seed Foundation, a Huygens Grant from the Dutch Ministry of Culture, the Helen Fay Prize in Piano at Juilliard, and the Susan W. Rose piano grant. She has given piano, fortepiano, and harpsichord performances at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Forte/Piano Conference at the Westfield Center, the Conference of the American Musicological Society, the Finger Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Friends of Mozart, MusicIC, the Midtown Series at St. Bart’s Church in New York City, Music Matters, Serenata of Santa Fe, Sunday Chatter, Apple Hill Chamber Music Festival, the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands, the Finchcocks Collection, and the Frederick Collection. She has participated in chamber music collaborations with the Sebastians, Gretchen’s Muse, and Trio Pasqualati. She has been artistic director of ChamberFest at the Frederick Collection of Historical Pianos and has served as a faculty member at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. She has recorded the Complete Mendelssohn Violin Sonatas on period instruments with Abigail Karr and 18th-century harpsichord and fortepiano duos with Rebecca Cypess. She won the Juilliard School Concerto Competition, the Haddonfield Concerto Competition, and the Amsterdam Virtuosi Square Piano Competition.

Yang received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from Juilliard. She studied piano with Yoheved Kaplinsky, Julian Martin, and Robert McDonald. She studied fortepiano with Audrey Axinn and Stanley Hoogland and harpsichord and clavichord with Menno van Delft. Yang received her master’s summa cum laude from Amsterdam Conservatory. 

Yang is currently a faculty member of the Juilliard Preparatory Division and Evening Division.

ARIELLE LEVIOFF

Ms. Levioff grew up in Philadelphia and began playing the piano at age 5. She studied at the Bryn Mawr Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Ms. Nelly Berman and later went on to study at the Juilliard School in the pre-college division. During her younger years at the piano, Ms. Levioff was a finalist and prize-winner in several competitions including Temple University's Concerto Competition, the Queens Symphony Concerto Competition, and Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia.

At the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, Ms. Levioff has been a teaching artist since 2005, and also gives lectures and performances in the Art of Listening to Music series. She is the music director of the annual Point Counterpoint chamber music workshop for adults on Vermont's Lake Dunmore, where she will also co-direct a new program for adult pianists in September, 2019 with her husband, Michael C. Haigler. Ms. Levioff holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, and has attended prestigious summer festivals including the Tanglewood Institute, the Cleveland Orchestra's Kent/Blossom Festival and the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. Among her teachers were Phillip Kawin, Kenneth Cooper, Joela Jones, Philippe Bianconi, Philippe Entremont and Gaby Casadesus. She has also participated in masterclasses with Susan Starrr, Gyorgy Sandor, Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Jonathan Biss, and Garrick Ohlsson.

Ms. Levioff was a finalist in the 2009 Sorel Medallion Competition in Collaborative Piano and the following summer was invited by the Sorel Foundation to join the faculty of the Daniel Ferro Vocal Festival in Tuscany. She has also appeared as a guest artist with the Queens Oratorio Society, and has performed with several New York ensembles including the Ridotto Chamber Ensemble, the Phoenix Ensemble, and the New York Women's Ensemble.

From 1999 to 2009 Ms. Levioff was the principal pianist of Goliard Concerts, an organization dedicated to community outreach and the commissioning of new ensemble works by young composers. Starting in 2005 she served as Goliard's artistic director, overseeing several tours of the Southeastern United States with performance sites in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North & South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Visit her website at http://www.ariellelevioff.com/

SHUANG GUO-WROE

Born in Beijing, Dr. Guo was trained in both disciplines in China where she received a BS degree from the Central Conservatory of Music of Beijing. She later obtained the Artist Diplomas from Berlin, Germany and a Doctorate degree from the University of Missouri. She studied under Xiaoying Zheng, Hong Nian Yang, Xin Xu in China, Rubinstein and Hellwig in Germany, Joan Baker and Robert Weirich in USA.

As a concert pianist and conductor, Dr. Guo performs widely in China, Germany, Israel and USA garnering recognition and accolades along the way. A partial list of orchestras where she has appeared includes the Qingdao Philharmonic, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Helsinki Radio Symphony, the New Brandenburg Symphony, the Jerusalem Symphony, the Rannana Symphony, the Brasov Philharmonic Orchestra, the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra and the Kansas City Camerata. Committed to promote understanding and appreciation of Chinese music, Dr. Guo often introduces Chinese compositions in her performances and recital programs.

In 1995, Dr. Guo became the finalist in the Leonard Bernstein Conducting Competition. While in China, she held the prestigious post of the principal conductor of the Woman’s Philharmonic Society of Beijing where she frequently performed piano duets with her sister Xiang Guo.

When she is not conducting, Dr. Guo is a dedicated music teacher giving private piano lessons and a devoted mother to Sebastian and Tristan. She is married to David Wroe, the music director and conductor of the Westfield Symphony Orchestra in NJ.