COMPETITION REGISTRATION EXTENDED THROUGH WEDNESDAY, MAY 15TH – REGISTER NOW!
Steinway & Sons and Schmitt Music are proud to hold the second annual Steinway Junior Piano Competition for young pianists ages 18 and under this summer!
The Steinway Junior Piano Competition will be held at Steinway showrooms across the United States and Canada and is an extension of our unwavering commitment to the pursuit of superior artistic expression through piano performance. First, second, and third place winners at each event will receive commemorative medals and first-place prizes: Division I – $400; Division II – $700; Division III – $1000.
The 2019 Steinway Junior Piano Competition and honors recitals will take place on Friday, June 21 through Sunday, June 23 at Schmitt Music Steinway Showrooms in Denver (6/21-6/23), Edina (6/21-6/22), and Kansas City (6/21-6/23).
Please note: Schmitt Music will not be following the national Steinway Competition timeline in order to prevent conflict with other established local events and competitions.
Visit Steinway’s competition application page to learn more about the requirements and regulations, and get started with your application! Select your state and choose your Schmitt Music event location, then complete and submit your application form by Wednesday, May 15th. A $75 registration fee is required.
Schmitt Music is honored to once again feature a group of highly esteemed judges for the Steinway Junior Piano Competition. Please click the “tabs” below to learn more about our 2019 judges:
Edina Steinway Competition Judges
Dr. Edward Turley
Having joined the faculty of the College of St. Benedict | St. John’s University in 1981, Edward Turley has been featured as soloist and collaborative pianist throughout the upper Midwest. In addition to his solo recitals and performances with various mid-western regional orchestras (Minneapolis Chamber Symphony, St. Cloud Symphony, Bloomington Symphony and Heartland Symphony), he has performed frequently in a chamber music capacity with colleagues in the CSB/SJU faculty chamber music ensemble – Pastiche. He has also performed on ten CD recordings, including: “Music for Trumpet and Piano I & II” and “The Invincible Cornet” with Dr. Dale White; “The Vocal Music of Bryan Beaumont Hayes”, “Under These Skies – British and American Art Song”, and “The Pleasures of Nature and Youth” with spouse Dr. Carolyn Finley (mezzo-soprano) and other colleagues; and two CDs, “Due Cappuccini” with colleague Dr. Richard Dirlam (saxophone).
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Edward Turley is also active as a clinician and adjudicator. For Minnesota Music Teachers Association he has served as the College Liaison and coordinator of the Level XI Piano Exams.
Since coming to the College of St. Benedict | St. John’s University he has served as instructor in piano, piano literature, piano pedagogy, and has developed a special area of interest in teaching courses for the non-major music student. He was the recipient of the Sister Mary Grell Teacher of Distinction Award in 1996. He has also served as chair of the CSB/SJU Music Department from 1994-’98, 2001-’13 and 2016-present.
Dr. Shannon Wettstein Sadler
Shannon Wettstein Sadler, pianist, champions all that is new and adventurous in classical music as soloist and chamber musician. In addition to an active schedule as recitalist and concerto soloist, Shannon is the pianist in the acclaimed flute and piano duo, Calliope, with flutist Elizabeth McNutt. She was formerly pianist with the contemporary music ensemble Zeitgeist, based in St. Paul, MN and Boston’s Auros Group for New Music. Dr. Wettstein has premiered countless new works–over 60 new works a year for more years than she cares to count–and has collaborated with many of the great living composers, including Brian Ferneyhough, Chinary Ung, Roger Reynolds, Jeffrey Mumford, Frederick Rzewski, and Martin Bresnick. She has performed throughout the North America, Europe, and Asia including New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth. Recent performances include residencies at the Chinati Foundation, the University of Iowa Center for New Music, the Sounds Modern series at the Ft. Worth Modern Museum, the Nirmitta Composers Workshop in Bangkok, Thailand, and the Monteverde Institute in Monteverde, Costa Rica.
As an educator, Dr. Wettstein is equally at home teaching advanced young artists and students brand-new to the piano. Her students have experienced great success in competitions at the local, regional, and national level. Her versatility as a performer extends to her work with students. Students grow in their artistry and skill in standard classical repertoire, explore a wide range of recent styles of classical music, and learn to collaborate with others as chamber musicians and accompanists. Dr. Wettstein prepares students with the piano skills needed for any music career, whether it is music therapy, music education, performance, composition, or music technology.
Dr. Wettstein holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego specializing in the performance of the most adventurous, challenging, and experimental contemporary classical music. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree with highest distinction from the University of Kansas and a Master of Music with honors from New England Conservatory. Her teachers have included Aleck Karis, Stephen Drury, Sequeira Costa, Richard Angeletti, and Claude Frank.
Awards include a Minnesota State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant to fund performances in Germany, the American Composers Forum-Jerome Foundation Composer Commissioning Grant to commission new works for piano and electronics, and the Champions of New Music Award, awarded to Zeitgeist by the American Composers Forum for career dedication to the promotion of new classical music. Her recordings are available on the Centaur, Innova, Koch International Classics, Mode, MSR, Neuma, New Focus, Ravello, and Tzadik labels.
Dr. Wettstein joined the faculty of St. Cloud State University in 2015. Prior to that, she was on the faculty of Augsburg College and Bemidji State University. When not at the piano, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga, cooking and traveling with her husband, Billy, and spending time with her two dogs, Oliver and Emma.
Dr. Ann DuHamel
Praised for her “imaginative …profound and mystical” playing as well as her enthusiastic teaching, pianist Ann DuHamel serves as Head of Keyboard Studies at the University of Minnesota, Morris, where she coordinates and teaches solo, collaborative, and group piano, as well as piano pedagogy. She recently earned a DMA in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa under the tutelage of Ksenia Nosikova. Prior to her time at UI, she was Assistant Director to Paul Wirth at the Central MN Music School.
In 2013 Ann received the MTNA-PTG Performance Study scholarship to work with Lowell Liebermann on his solo piano nocturnes. In collaboration with saxophonist Preston Duncan as the duo Kairos, she commissioned and premiered a new work at the 12th Annual International Saxophone Conference in Mexico City, where her playing and teaching was described as “…a delight for the ears and the soul.” A founding member of new music group ensemble: Périphérie, she returned to Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in New York City with the ensemble under the auspices of DCINY (Distinguished Concerts International New York) in the fall of 2013; reviews from this performance include “… they are all superb musicians as individuals and have a musical rapport as an ensemble…” and “… the exceptional performance from EP.” Past performances include venues in Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Italy, Mexico, and across the U.S., including the San Francisco Festival of Contemporary Music; upcoming performances include venues in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Sweden.
Denver Steinway Competition Judges
Dr. Andrew Cooperstock
Pianist Andrew Cooperstock performs widely as soloist and chamber musician and has appeared throughout six continents and in most of the fifty states, including performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the United Nations. He has been featured in recitals and concerto appearances at the Chautauqua, Brevard, and Round Top music festivals, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and Hong Kong’s Hell Hot! New Music Festival, in such international locales as London, Paris, Geneva, Beijing, Seoul, Accra, Kiev, Vladivostok, Canberra, Quito, and Lima, and on National Public Radio, Radio France, and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
An advocate for American music, Andrew Cooperstock has premiered works by composers Lowell Liebermann, John Fitz Rogers, Rob Paterson, and Aaron Copland and participated in commissioning works by Eric Stern, Robert Starer, Dan Welcher, and Meira Warshauer. With a special interest in piano music of Leonard Bernstein, he made the first recording of Bernstein’s complete piano works, for Bridge Records, a portion of which appears in Deutsche Grammophon’s Bernstein: Complete Works.
A sough-after chamber musician, Cooperstock has performed with the Takács Quartet, the Ying Quartet, the Dorian Quintet, violinist James Buswell, violist Roberto Diaz, cellists Andres Diaz and András Fejer, hornist Eli Epstein, and pianist Paul Schoenfield. He is a member of the Colorado Chamber Players, a regular soloist with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra, and a founder of Trio Contraste, which specializes in commissioning and performing contemporary music for piano, violin, and clarinet.
With violinist William Terwilliger, as Opus Two, Cooperstock has recorded the complete works for piano and violin by Aaron Copland. The award-winning duo has been internationally recognized for its “divine phrases, impelling rhythm, elastic ensemble and stunning sounds,” as well as its commitment to expanding the violin-piano duo repertoire. The duo has appeared throughout North and South America, Europe, and Australia, and it made its Asian debut in 2006 with performances across China, Korea, Japan, and the Russian Far East. In 2011 they were in residence with the National Symphony of Ghana, Africa, and at the University of Ghana Legon, and they were featured performers at Hong Kong’s premier chamber music festival, Hell Hot! Their appearance at Woodstock, New York’s prestigious Maverick Concerts was called “one of the most significant and worthwhile concerts of the 2010 season.” In 2013 Opus Two were guests of the United States Embassy on tour throughout Peru. With cellist Andres Diaz, Opus Two has recorded chamber music by Lowell Liebermann (Albany Records) and Paul Schoenfield (Azica Records). Opus Two’s recording Bernstein: Violin Sonata, Piano Trio, New Transcriptions (Naxos) features new arrangements by legendary Broadway music director Eric Stern and collaborations with Broadway actress-singer Marin Mazzie, and their following CD, a 75th-anniversary tribute to American composer George Gershwin, features a newly commissioned Eric Stern arrangement of beloved songs from Girl Crazy and collaborations with Broadway singer Ashley Brown. Cooperstock’s latest recording, Leonard Bernstein: Complete Solo Works for Piano, was lauded by Gramophone as “winning” and “brilliant.”
Prize-winner in the National Federation of Music Clubs Artist Competition, the New Orleans International Piano Competition, and the United States Information Agency’s Artistic Ambassador Auditions, Cooperstock has since served as juror for the New Orleans International Piano Competition, the Iowa International Piano Competition, the Liszt-Garrison International Competition, China’s Giant Cup Art Talent Competition, the Music Teachers National Association national competitions, and the National Federation of Music Clubs Artist Competition, among others.
Dr. Cooperstock holds degrees from the Juilliard School and the Cincinnati and Peabody Conservatories, where he studied with Abbey Simon, David Bar-Illan, Walter Hautzig, and Samuel Sanders. A Steinway artist, he is acting Assistant Director of the Saarburg (Germany) International Music Festival and School, a member of the Artist-Faculty at the International Concerto Festival (Czech Republic), and Professor of Piano at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he is also Artistic Director of the University’s Bernstein at 100 celebration.
Dr. Justin Krawitz
South African pianist Justin Krawitz is Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy at the University of Northern Colorado. Previously he has served on the faculties of the University of Cape Town, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Luther College (Iowa).
Krawitz has performed in South Africa, the United States, Canada, Argentina and in several cities across Europe. He is known for his highly considered artistic collaborations that give rise to authoritative performances of new and little-known repertoire. Following his performance of Karel Husa’s First Piano Sonata, the Pulitzer prize-winning composer wrote, “the level of his artistry and commitment is extraordinary.” His work with South African composer Hendrik Hofmeyr culminated in the world premiere of a new piano sonata inside Cape Town Central Train Station as part of the public arts festival Infecting the City. His diverse performance experience has included recitals at venues such as the Chateau Kroměříž as part of the Forfest International Festival, participation in outreach concerts at the Madison Correctional Facility in Wisconsin, and work as a recording artist for Czech Radio.
Krawitz is an active clinician, with regular invitations to give masterclasses and pedagogical workshops at music schools from Raleigh to Reykjavik. Recent appearances as a presenter or panelist include the 2014 International EPTA Conference (Oslo), the 2013 International CMS Conference (Buenos Aires) and the 2015 National MTNA Conference (Las Vegas). Krawitz is also a sought-after adjudicator at competitions both in the U.S. and abroad. He has been published in the EPTA Piano Journal, the Czech musicological journal Opus musicum, and the ISSTIP Journal Tension in Performance, which he joins as editor in 2015. Krawitz is a contributing editor of the periodical Martinů Revue and a board member of the International Martinů Circle.
Dr. Krawitz was a Paul Collins Fellow at UW-Madison from 2006-2009, a Donald Gordon Creative Arts Fellow at the University of Cape Town in 2011, and a URC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCT’s South African College of Music from 2012-2014.
Dr. William Lipke
Pianist William Lipke, Professor of Music, has been on the faculty of Adams State University since 2001. He has performed with musicians of international stature such as the Ying Quartet (four different seasons) and international opera baritone Håkan Hagegård. He regularly performs solo recitals in the U.S. and in Europe, including recitals in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Serbia, and his appearances with orchestra include the Liszt Concerto in A Major, which was broadcast on public radio.
His early teacher was a graduate of the Royal College of Music in London and he first appeared as a concerto soloist with a youth orchestra at the age of twelve. He studied privately with Ozan Marsh (who studied with Liszt pupil Emil von Sauer and had lessons with Horowitz and Rachmaninoff), with Walter Hautzig, and in master class with Menahem Pressler and chamber music with the LaSalle Quartet and Dorothy Delay (the teacher of Itzhak Perlmen and Sarah Chang). Lipke holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and a doctoral cognate in music history, which informs his performances and lectures. He has given numerous presentations at state, national and international conventions.
Lipke has built a thriving piano studio at Adams State and has experience teaching at all levels. He mentors each student to reach their career goals. In addition to teaching piano lessons, he also teaches Piano Literature and Pedagogy and Accompanying Practicum, with students actively performing in the community. One of his students performed as a soloist with the Honolulu Symphony. Lipke also taught for ten years at the Northern Arizona University Summer Music Camp. He maintains an active schedule as a teacher, composer and performer, teaching and performing on a Steinway grand piano he was privileged to select at the New York factory, as well as a 21-rank pipe organ and a Franco-Flemish double manual harpsichord.
Kansas City Steinway Competition Judges
Dr. Jon Hynes
A gold medal winner of the Nena Wideman International Piano Competition and the Young Keyboard Artists International Competition, Jon Hynes has enjoyed an extensive performing career with solo recitals in venues including St. Martin-in-the-Fields (London, England), Trinity College at Oxford University, Boccarelli Auditorium (São Paulo, Brazil), the American Cathedral (Paris, France), the Musicora Festival (Paris, France), Aula Hall (Interlaken, Switzerland), the American Consulate (Frankfurt, Germany), the American Concert Series (Geneva, Switzerland and Brussels, Belgium) and numerous concerts throughout the United States and France, including the American Consulate and the United States Embassy.
Hynes holds DMA and MM degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where he was a student of (and served as teaching assistant to) Natalya Antonova. He won the coveted Performer’s Certificate, and performed as soloist with the Eastman Philharmonia as the winner of the Eastman Concerto Competition. Prior to his studies at Eastman, he was awarded a Rotary International Scholarship for Study Abroad and spent two years at the Paris Conservatory as a student of Michel Béroff. Dr. Hynes holds a BM degree (magna cum laude) from the University of Arkansas where he studied with Alan Chow. Before graduation he attended the International Fine Arts Institute in Moscow, USSR, as a student of Lena Bulatova at the Gnessin School of Music for Gifted Children.
Devoted to teaching the next generation of musicians, Jon Hynes has presented lecture-recitals for the European Piano Teachers Association Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia; the International Conference on the Arts and Humanities in Honolulu, Hawaii; and workshops for students and teachers throughout the United States and abroad. He served seventeen years as both the Founder and Director of the Arkansas Baptist School of Fine Arts and he continues to maintain a large private studio of international students, many of whom have won prizes in competitions such as the Music Teachers National Association competitions, the CICA International Concerto Competition, and various national scholarships in some of the most prestigious colleges and music programs in the country. His students regularly receive top honors in National Federation of Music Clubs Junior Festivals and Missouri Music Teachers Association Honors Auditions. Dr. Hynes served on the faculty of the University of Central Missouri from 2015-2017, and in addition to continuing private piano instruction, he is pleased to begin offering group instruction at Center Stage Academy for the Performing Arts (Warrensburg) in fall 2017.
Dr. Nathanael May
As a festival producer, concert organizer, recording artist, consultant, educator, and pianist, Nathanael May seeks to engage audiences with music of the modern era. Noted for ‘quicksilver grace’ (Fanfare) and ‘highly developed, extremely differentiated touch and sound’ (Fuldaer Zeitung), Nathanael has performed on three continents and was named the 2012 Winner of the American Prize in recorded solo piano performance. As a founding member of the Strung Out Trio, he has commissioned many works, receiving a Barlow Foundation Grant for a trio by German microtonal composer Michael Quell. SOT gave the American premiere of this work as a featured ensemble at the national conference of the College Music Society in Boston. He is also the founder and artistic director of the soundSCAPE Composition And Performance Exchange; a festival dedicated to the promotion of music by emerging composers and performers. Since its inception in 2005, soundSCAPE has attracted 400 participants from 40 countries, resulting in the creation of hundreds of new works. He has also co-founded the international Piano Days Festival & Competition, which in 2015 presented Juilliard professor of piano, Jerome Lowenthal, along with 20 students from Asia, Europe and the USA.
Nathanael has been awarded the Mehl and Scanlon awards for contributions to faculty scholarship and university service at Missouri Western, in addition to being named the 2011 Outstanding Recent Alumnus of his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Areas of research interest include piano repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries, with presentations at the Euro Mediterranean Music Conference (Cyprus), World Piano Conference (Serbia), Composition in the 21st Century Conference (Ireland), and the International Festival for Artistic Innovation (England). Nathanael holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (MM) and the University of Kansas (DMA), with appointments to teaching posts at Eastern Mediterranean University (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) and Missouri Western State University, where he currently lectures as an associate professor of piano.
Dr. Wei-Han Su
Dr. Wei-Han Su’s concert activities have taken him to the major cities of the United States, England, Russia, Italy, Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. He has performed in such prestigious venues as the Purcell Room at the South Bank Centre, England, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and the Hall of Columns, Russia. In 1991, he made his orchestral debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Dr. Su was a featured recitalist at the Walnut Hill Summer Music Festival in Boston, Massachusetts in 1999 and 2004. He has performed on concert series in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., and has recently made guest appearances in Pennsylvania, Kansas, Texas, Ohio, Arkansas and California. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with the Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana, Cambridge Chamber Orchestra, and Springfield Symphony Orchestra among others.
His compact disc recording of the music of Charles Ives with tenor Andrew Childs was released on the Centaur label in 2006. Dr. Su received the Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors from Cambridge University, the Master of Music degree and the Performer’s Diploma from the Royal College of Music, London, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Peabody Conservatory. His principal teachers include Boris Slutsky, Yu Chun Yee, Joyce Rathbone, and Yonty Solomon. While attending the Royal College of Music, he won the Chappell Gold Medal, the College’s highest honor for pianists. He has served on the faculties of the Peabody Conservatory, Peabody Preparatory and the Missouri Fine Arts Academy.
He is currently Professor of Piano at Missouri State University, where he is the recipient of a University Award in Teaching in 2005.
Questions? Please contact us at steinway@schmittmusic.com for details.
