Bao Hui-qiao is one of the most well-known pianists in China. She was the soloist at the China symphony Orchestra from 1970 until retirement. She finished undergraduate and graduate studies at the Central Conservatory of music under the guidance and help of Prof. Zhu Gongyi and Prof. Tatiana Kravchenko, who was the Vice-President of the Leningrad Conservatory of Music.
During the years of her university study, she won numerous prizes both nationally and internationally, including the 5th Prize in the 2nd George Enescu International Piano Competition in 1961 and “The Golden CD prize” issued by the China Recording Company in 1992 and, etc. As a pianist, besides her frequent concert tours all over the China, she has also performed in more than twenty countries abroad, such as Austria, Japan, Singapore, Romania, Chile, Israel and etc., and received very high acclaim.
She has been on the jury of nearly all the most important piano competitions in China and has invited to be on the panel of many international piano competitions, including Dr. Louis Sigall International Piano Competition in Chile, Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Israel, Jaen International Piano Competition in Spain，the 11th Unisa International Piano Competition 2008 in South Africa and The 12th Taipei International Chopin piano Competition in Taiwan etc. And She is now the Vice-president of the China Musicians’ Association.

Pavel Gililov having received piano tuition from an early age, the pianist performed for the first time with an orchestra at the age of eight. His exceptional musical talent was discovered by Dimitri Kabalevsky, on whose recommendation he began his studies at the Conservatory in St Petersburg, where he graduated with distinction.
In 1972, while still a student, he won the Moscow National Piano Competition and was awarded a prize at the 1975 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. In 1978 he took first prize at the International Viotti Competition in Vercelli, Italy and relocated to Germany. His performances all over the world and numerous CD recordings received great acclaim from audiences and critics alike.
As a soloist he received invitations to the Salzburg Festival, Berliner Festspiele and Wiener Festwochen, the Edinburg and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals, the International Music Festival of Buenos Aires, and many others.
He has a piano master class at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne and is Visiting Professor at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg. The pianist also holds several master classes throughout Europe and the Far East. Pavel Gililov is Chairman of the Jury and in charge of artistic matters at the International Beethoven Competition Bonn.

In 1985, Kim Daejin won the first prize in the prestigious 6th Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition (presently, the Cleveland Competition). In 1986, Mr. Kim made his New York debut at Merkin Hall, New York and received an exceptionally favorable review from the critic for the New York Times who wrote that “Kim Daejin demonstrated all the accouterments necessary for a successful solo career.” Since then, his international career has taken him to major concert halls throughout the world.
In 1994,
Mr. Kim and his family moved to Korea and since then he has became a leading example of that rare individual who is able to successfully combine the demanding careers of a concert artist and the most productive teacher. Recently, he has appeared as a soloist with the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchestra, Berlin and the RTE National Orchestra in Dublin and the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra at the Suntory Hall in Japan.
Mr. Kim has been on jury member for the Gina Bachauer, the Cleveland, the Hamamatsu, the Clara Haskil, the Sendai, the China, the Paderewski, the Beethoven International Piano Competition(Bonn) and many others.
Kim Daejin holds Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Juilliard School where he studied with Martin Canin. Mr. Kim has been a member of the associate faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and has taught at Yale University as visiting professor in 2006. He is currently a professor at the Korean National University of Arts.

Jerome Lowenthal studied in his native Philadelphia with Olga Samaroff-Stokowski, in New York with William Kapell and Edward Steuermann, and in Paris with Alfred Cortot, meanwhile traveling annually to Los Angeles for coachings with Artur Rubinstein. After winning prizes in three international competitions (Bolzano, Darmstadt, and Brussels), he moved to Jerusalem where, for three years, he played, taught and lectured.
Returning to America, he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic playing Bartok’s Concerto no. 2 in 1963. Since then, he has performed more-or-less everywhere, from the Aleutians to Zagreb. Conductors with whom he has appeared as soloist include Barenboim, Ozawa, Tilson Thomas, Temirkanov, and Slatkin, as well as such giants of the past as Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, Pierre Monteux and Leopold Stokowski. He has played sonatas with Itzhak Perlman. He has recently recorded the Beethoven Fourth Concerto with cadenzas by eleven different composers.
Teaching, too, is an important part of Mr. Lowenthal’s musical life. For twenty years at the Juilliard School and for forty-one summers at the Music Academy of the West, he has worked with an extraordinary number of gifted pianists, whom he encourages to understand the music they play in a wide aesthetic and cultural perspective and to project it with the freedom which that perspective allows.

Praised by the Los Angeles Times for his “power, virtuosity and mastery of tone color (that) is vivid and evocative,” Korean-born pianist Moon Ick Choo is the recipient of numerous awards, including The Montreal International Competition, the Geneva International Competition, and the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition at the Juilliard School.
Since making his United States debut in 1979 with the Minnesota Orchestra under Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, He has performed in many countries including the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan and Korea. His performances have been broadcast frequently on radio and TV in the United States, Canada and Korea.
He grew up in the United States and Canada as well as in his native Korea and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and with Gyorgy Sebok at Indiana University where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees with highest distinction. He later received his doctor of musical arts degree from the Juilliard School where he worked with Sascha Gorodnitzki.
Currently Professor of Piano at Seoul National University in Korea, Mr. Moon has also taught at University of California at Los Angeles where he headed the piano department for 12 years. During the summers he has taught and performed at the Brevard Music Center and the Chautauqua Institute in the U.S., Festival MusicAlp in France and in numerous festivals in Korea.

Nakamura Hiroko began to study the piano at the age of three and soon became widely known as a child prodigy. After winning all of the major music competitions in Japan, she made her debut at the age 15, when she was chosen to be the soloist for the first overseas tour of the NHK Symphony. On this tour she performed in cities such as London, Paris and New York and received rave reviews. At the Julliard School of Music, she studied with the legendary pedagogue, Rosina Lhevinne and subsequently became the youngest prizewinner at the 7th International Chopin Competition.
She has performed with the numerous orchestras including the Wiener Symphoniker, Moscow Philharmonic, USSR State Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, and the Detroit Symphony and under such conductors as James Levine, Kiril Kondrasin, Rafael Frubech, Evgeny Svetlanov, Vladimir Fedoseyev and Jean Fournet.
Ms. Nakamura was the only Asian pianist Harold Schonberg, one of the most respected music critics of the 20th Century, mentioned in his renowned book, “The Great Pianists”. He wrote, “She has brilliant technique, temperament to spare, and an affinity for romantic music.” She has served on the jury of innumerable international competitions such as the Hamamatsu, Tchaikovsky, Leeds, Arthur Rubinstein, Sydney, Busoni, Beijing, and the China Shanghai International Youth Competition.

Born in Marseille in a musicians family, Jacques Rouvier studied with Vlado Perlemuter, Pierre Sancan and Jean Hubeau at the Paris National Superior Conservatory of Music, where he obtained first prizes in Piano and Chamber Music. He also completed his education with harmony and orchestra conducting.
Prize winner of several competitions including the Viotti, Maria Canals, European Union of Radios and Long-Thibaud, he created in 1970 the Rouvier-Kantorow-Muller piano trio with whom he performed during 35 years.
He participated as a soloist or chamber musician in many festivals and academies (Prades, Spoleto, Aix- en- Provence, Kuhmo, Holland Music Sessions … ) and was invited to do master-classes all around the world.
His recordings of complete works for piano by Maurice Ravel and sonatas for violin and piano by Ravel and Debussy were awarded “Grand Prix du Disque”. He also recorded the complete works by Claude Debussy (DENON) and more than 30 other CDs.
Invited to participate in the juries of many prestigious international competitions (Tschaikowsky, Montreal, Marguerite-Long, Dublin, Leeds, Hamamatsu, Santander, Seoul, Geneve…) he has been teaching at CNSM de Paris since 1979 and also at UdK Berlin since 2006.

Joaquin Soriano has since performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Israel Philharmonic, the National Orchestra of Spain, the RAI Orchestra of Italy, the ORTF Orchestra of France, the Gürzenich Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber, the Royal Philharmonic, the Manchester Hallé Orchestra, the Lausanne Camerata, the Varsovia Camerata and the New-York Chamber.
As a jury member, he has been on the panels of well known International Competitions: Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein (as a vice-president), Marguerite Long, Van Cliburn, María Callas (as a president of the jury), Hamamatsu, Bolzano, London, Leeds, Dublin and Santander (as a president and artistic director). At present, he is the artistic director of the Iturbi International Piano Competition in Valencia (Spain).
Soriano teaches as a professor at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. He is a member of the Academy of San Fernando and of the Institute of Spain. He is fully active in his career as a musician, a professor and as an international juror. He is collaborating with the Eutherpe Foundation since 2005.

Beginning his artistic career at the age of fifteen, Israeli born Arie Vardi went on to receive international acclaim as one of the country’s foremost pianists. After winning the Chopin Competition in Israel, he appeared with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta, and upon winning the George Enescu International Competition in Bucharest, he played numerous concerts throughout Europe.
He has performed widely as soloist with major orchestras with Semion Bychkov, Sergio Commissiona, Lukas Foss, Kurt Masur, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Zubin Mehta, Paul Paray, Paul Sacher and David Zinman, among others. His concert tours have taken him to Eastern and Western Europe, the United States, Latin America, the Far East, Australia and Japan.
Mr. Vardi’s extensive repertoire includes various Israeli works, many of which were dedicated to him. In addition to his concert career, Arie Vardi is a professor of piano at the Hochschule fuer Musik in Hannover and at the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel Aviv University, where he served as its director and chair of the Piano Faculty.
He has been a Jury member for most of the leading international piano competitions, such as Beijing, Cleveland, Hamamatsu, Leeds, Milan, Moscow, Munich, Salt Lake City, Santander, Sydney, Tokyo, Vienna, Warsaw, and others. He is the Artistic Advisor and Chairman of the Jury of the Arthur Rubinstein International Master Competition.

Fanny Waterman was born in Leeds, she studied with Tobias Matthay, and later as a Scholar at the Royal College of Music, London, with Cyril Smith. After a notable performing career, she felt that her real vocation was as a teacher. Over the years she has given Master-Classes on six continents, appeared on television and radio, and with Marion Harewood (Marion Thorpe) has compiled a series of publications entitled Piano Lessons with Fanny Waterman/ Marion Harewood, which now runs to thirty volumes which have achieved sales of two million copies.
In 1963 with Marion Thorpe, then the Countess of Harewood and her late husband, Dr. Geoffrey de Keyser, she founded the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, which is regarded by the international music community as the greatest international piano competition in the world.
For the last thirty years she has become a highly sought after jury member of international competitions including the Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Horowitz, Hamamatsu, Chopin, Bach, Vina del Mar and UNISA. Forthcoming jury engagements include the China and Leipzig piano competitions. Several of her students have been prize winners in the Leeds, Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, Busoni, London and Geneva competitions.
She has also been awarded Honorary Doctorates by the Universities of Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan and York and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music, and Vice-President of the European Piano Teachers’ Association (EPTA).

(in alphabetical order)
*updated April 2011