FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!

NEWS from Young Concert Artists, Inc.

FOUR FIRST PRIZE WINNERS ANNOUNCED AT THE 2017 YOUNG CONCERT ARTISTS INTERNATIONAL AUDITIONS

November 13, 2017 26-year-old Chinese accordionist Hanzhi Wang, 23-year-old Korean pianist Do-Hyun Kim, 18-year-old American/Bulgarian cellist Zlatomir Fung, and the Maryland-based Omer - violinists Mason Yu and Erica Tursi, violist Jinsun Hong, and cellist Alex Cox were selected from twelve Finalists of the 2017 Young Concert Artists International Auditions in the Final Auditions on Saturday, November 11, held at Merkin Concert Hall. The L to R: The Omer Quartet, Hanzhi Wang, accordion; Zlatomir Fung, cello; Do-Hyun Kim, Auditions drew almost 200 applicants piano from 30 countries.

Each First Prize Winner will be presented next season in two major debuts in New York and in Washington, D.C. The Winners join the roster of Young Concert Artists, Inc., which provides three or more years of management services, concert engagements, promotion, and career development. The members of the Jury for the Final Auditions were Lynn Chang (violin)*, Benny Kim (violin)*, Scott Nickrenz (), Fred Sherry (cello)*, William Schimmel (accordion), Gerard Schwarz (trumpet/conductor)*, Anne-Marie McDermott (piano)*, Jerome Lowenthal (piano), Susan Wadsworth (chair). The Young Concert Artists International Auditions are not a competition: there are no rankings, and any number of winners on a wide range of instruments and voice can be selected, competing against a standard of excellence, not each other. Young Concert Artists, Inc., a non-profit organization founded in 1961 by Susan Wadsworth, continues to discover and launch the careers of extraordinary musicians. Among the now-renowned artists who began their careers with Young Concert Artists are pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Emanuel Ax, Jeremy Denk, Murray Perahia, Anne-Marie McDermott, and Richard Goode; violinists Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, Chee-Yun, and Pinchas Zukerman; oboist Douglas Boyd; soprano Dawn Upshaw; the Tokyo, Borromeo, and St. Lawrence String Quartets, and composers Kevin Puts, , and Andrew Norman. * Alumnus/Alumna of Young Concert Artists

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Monica J. Felkel, Director of Artist Management Ron (Ronghong) Ma 馬榮弘, Far-East Representative Vicki Margulies, Artist Manager [email protected]

YOUNG CONCERT ARTISTS, INC. 1776 Broadway, Suite 1500 New York, NY 10019 Telephone (212) 307-6655 www.yca.org

MEET THE WINNERS:

ZLATOMIR FUNG, cellist

Cellist Zlatomir Fung has been a soloist with Ann Arbor Symphony, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Santa Cruz Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, New England Philharmonic and the Boston Pops as well as with the Lausanne Sinfonietta, the State Philharmonic of Sibiu and the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a regular member of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and has been featured on NPR’s radio show "From the Top" six times, as well as on Performance Today. Mr. Fung has participated at Ravinia's Steans Music Institute, the Heifetz International Music Institute, MusicAlp, and the Aspen Music Festival and School.

He won First Prizes at the 2016 George Enescu International Cello Competition in Romania, the 2015 Johansen International Competition for Young String Players in Washington, DC, the 2014 Stulberg International String Competition in Michigan, and the 2014 Irving Klein International Competition in California. Mr. Fung was selected as a 2016 Presidential Scholar for the Arts and was awarded the 2016 Landgrave von Hesse Prize at the Kronberg Academy Cello Masterclasses. He was a winner of the 2017 Astral National Auditions.

His teachers have included Julie Albers, Emmanuel Feldman, and Nancy Hair. Currently, he is studying at The Juilliard School with Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy, where he is a recipient of the Kovner Fellowship. Outside of music, Zlatomir enjoys philosophy and cinema, and plays chess competitively.

At the YCA Auditions, he won five performance Prizes: Buffalo Society Prize, Embassy Series Prize in Washington D.C., Friends of Music Concerts Prize in New York, Paramount Theatre Prize in Vermont, and Sunday Musicale Prize in New Jersey, in addition to the Rhoda Walker Teagle Concert Prize which will sponsor his New York Debut, the Alexander Kasza-Kasser Concert Prize, which sponsors his Kennedy Center debut and the Slomovic Prize which sponsors an Orchestra Partnership program engagement.

DO-HYUN KIM, pianist

Pianist Do-Hyun Kim has performed in the Great Hungarian Composer Concert at the Franz Liszt Academy in Hungary, and in New York's Pianofest. As winner of their Concerto Competition, he was soloist with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, performing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1. He has performed with the Gringolts Quartet and was featured in masterclasses with Asaf Zohar and with Kirill Gerstein as a Fellow of the 2014 Gilmore Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Mr. Kim won First Prize at the 2011 Kukmin Daily Piano Competition in South Korea, and Joint Second Prize at the 2017 Vendome Prize for Piano in Verbier, Switzerland which will result in his debut recital at the 2018 Verbier Festival. Mr. Kim earned his Bachelor’s degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in piano at The Juilliard School, where he works with Sergei Babayan.

At the YCA Auditions, Mr. Kim was awarded three special Prizes, including the Embassy Series Prize and the Korean Concert Society Prize in Washington, D.C., and the Tri-I Noon Recitals Prize at Rockefeller University in New York City.

YOUNG CONCERT ARTISTS, INC. 1776 Broadway, Suite 1500 New York, NY 10019 Telephone (212) 307-6655 www.yca.org

OMER QUARTET, string quartet

The Omer Quartet, comprised of violinists Mason Yu and Erica Tursi, violist Jinsun Hong, and cellist Alex Cox, has been praised for playing with a “sense of discovery and adventure, but also with considerable finesse” (The San Diego Union Tribune).

The Quartet has performed with internationally renowned artists such as Clive Greensmith, Eugene Drucker, Cho-Liang Lin, the Assad Brothers, and the Borromeo String Quartet, and has collaborated with composers such as Sean Shepherd and Perry Goldstein. They participated in the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the McGill International String Quartet Academy, the Ravinia Steans Institute, and the Perlman Music Program.

Committed to community engagement, the Quartet devotes time to creating original and interactive programs. This year the Boston Foundation awarded the Quartet a grant for performances in venues such as homeless shelters and drug rehabilitation centers throughout Boston. They also completed a fellowship with Music for Food, a musician-led initiative directed by Kim Kashkashian, to provide local hunger relief. Hoping to spread the organization’s mission, they are inaugurating a Music for Food concert series in the Washington, D.C. area with the help of grant funds awarded by Tarisio Auction House.

After studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Quartet completed a graduate residency at the New England Conservatory, where they served on the faculty, and are currently the Doctoral Fellowship String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Maryland. The Quartet’s current mentors are Katherine Murdock and David Salness, and they have worked closely with Paul Katz, Donald Weilerstein, Kim Kashkashian, and Soovin Kim.

The Omer Quartet received Top Prize at the 2017 Premio Paolo Borciani Competition in Italy, Grand Prize and the Gold Medal at the 2013 Fishoff National Chamber Music Competition in Indiana, Second Prize at the 2017 Trondheim International Competition in Norway, and the Special Prize at the 2016 Bordeaux International Competition in France.

At the YCA Auditions, the Quartet received four special Prizes including the Tri-I Noon Recitals Prize at Rockefeller University in New York City, the Tryon Concert Association Prize in North Carolina, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society Prize, and the Hayden’s Ferry Chamber Music Series Prize in Arizona.

HANZHI WANG, accordionist

Hanzhi Wang became the first accordionist to join the Young Concert Artists roster in its 57 year history. With her provocative yet sensitive performances, Hanzhi Wang has become popular amongst contemporary composers, including Sophia Gubaidulina, Martin Lohse and James Black, some of whom have who have dedicated their works to her.

Her concert career has taken her around the globe with performances in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Serbia, Montenegro, China, Japan, and Taiwan.

To inspire the next generation of young accordionists, Ms. Wang has lectured and given master classes at the International Summer Campus at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, the Tianjin Music Conservatory of China, and the Music College of Capital Normal University of China. She also served as a jury member for the Accordion Competition of Rome, the International Accordion Festival in Alcobaça, Portugal, and the 42nd International Castelfidardo Accordion Music Festival in Italy.

YOUNG CONCERT ARTISTS, INC. 1776 Broadway, Suite 1500 New York, NY 10019 Telephone (212) 307-6655 www.yca.org

In August 2018 she will release her first solo CD on Naxos, "In the Path of H.C. Andersen", with works by Danish composers. This is the first CD Naxos has ever released of solo accordion. She won First Prize in the 2007 Beijing International Accordion Competition in China, the 2013 Arrasate International Accordion Competition in Spain, the 2015 International Accordion Competition in Castelfidardo, Italy, and Third Prize in the 2017 Societa Umanitaria competition in Milano, Italy

Ms. Wang earned her Bachelor’s degree at the China Central Conservatory of Music, and her Master’s degree at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where she studied with Geir Draugsvoll. She was invited to be a visiting scholar at the Manhattan School of Music in United States, and is now an assistant teacher at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

At the YCA auditions, she was also awarded five special Prizes: the Candlelight Concert Society Prize in Maryland, the Sinfonia Gulf Coast Prize in Florida, the Tri-I Noon Recitals at Rockefeller University Prize in New York City, the Vancouver Recital Society Prize, and the Washington Performing Arts Prize (DC).

Prizes to be Awarded at a Later Date: • The Brownville Concert Series Prize • The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts Prize • The Lied Center of Kansas Prize • The Saint Vincent College Concert Series Prize • The Tannery Pond Concerts Prize • The University of Florida Performing Arts Prize • The Usedom Music Festival Prize

YOUNG CONCERT ARTISTS, INC. 1776 Broadway, Suite 1500 New York, NY 10019 Telephone (212) 307-6655 www.yca.org