EOIVC 2020 Pianists
Allison Freeman
A native of North Carolina, pianist Allison Freeman is equally established as a soloist and collaborator. She earned her Master’s degree at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University as a student of Boris Slutsky, and completed her undergraduate studies with Alvin Chow at Oberlin Conservatory.
Allison has performed at the Southeastern Piano Festival, Meadowmount School Of Music, Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Banff Centre, and Beijing International Music Festival. As winner of the Richard R. Deas Concerto Competition, Allison has appeared as soloist with the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra. She was also named a winner of the Oberlin Concerto Competition, and appeared as soloist with the Oberlin Orchestra. While at Oberlin, Allison was a recipient of the Rudolf Serkin Prize, the Faustina Hurlbutt Prize, and the Pi Kappa Lambda Prize.
Allison served as a graduate assistant at Peabody in accompanying, with a focus on string repertoire. She has served as a collaborative pianist for the Castleman Quartet Program and the Heifetz International Music Institute, and currently works as a collaborative pianist at the Peabody Conservatory. Allison also serves as Artistic Director of the Stretto Chamber Music Series, a newly launched concert series in the Baltimore area.
Lindsay Garritson
Pianist Lindsay Garritson has performed throughout the United States and abroad since the age of four. She has appeared as soloist with the Phoenix Symphony, Charleston Symphony, Las Colinas Symphony, Eastern Connecticut Symphony, Orchestre Métropolitain, and the Yale Philharmonia, among others.
Lindsay has received top prizes at the Montreal International Piano Competition, the USASU Bosendorfer International Piano Competition, and the Mozarteum International Chopin Competition. She was nominated as one of six pianists for the German International Piano Award (Frankfurt), and was one of thirty participants selected to compete in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
An active chamber musician, she has collaborated with Carter Brey, Ani Kavafian, Andres Cardenes, and Ettore Causa, among others. She has performed at many festivals including the Ravinia Festival, Prussia Cove International Musicians Seminar, and Music at Menlo Chamber Music Festival. This season, she will be making her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut featuring the world premiere of Carl Vine's Fourth Piano Sonata, a work written for her.
Lindsay is a graduate of Principia College (B.A. in music) and the Yale School of Music (M.M. and Artist Diploma). Her piano teachers include Boris Berman and Santiago Rodriguez, and she is currently a doctoral student at the University of Miami.
Beilin Han
Beilin Han was born in Shanghai, China and began studying piano at the age of three. She attended the Shanghai Conservatory of Music for Primary and Middle School and also attended the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore on a full scholarship. Immediately after graduating from Academy in Singapore, Ms. Han was accepted into the University of Kansas for her Masters Degree, being the only full scholarship recipient at the time.
Beilin was invited to perform at the 7th Annual World Piano Pedagogy Conference in Las Vegas in 2002 and was honored as a Young Artist in 2003. In 2004, Ms. Han became a prize winner of the Vianna Da Motta International Piano Competition in Portugal. Ms. Han has toured internationally as a concert pianist performing throughout China, Portugal, Spain, and the US. She has also appeared on radio programs in Singapore and the U.S., as well as a television program in China.
In 2008, Ms. Han graduated from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, where she earned her Artistic Diploma with Solomon Mikowsky and Meng-Chieh Liu.
In addition to Ms. Han's successful solo career, she also enjoys chamber music and collaborating with such artists as pianist Alberto Portugheis, world-renowned countertenor Paul Esswood, world-famous violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi, Yossif Ivanov, Ilya kaler, Kyoko Takezawa and Elmar Oliveira among others. She has also played for world-famous conductors such as Riccardo Muti and Christoph Eschenbach.
Currently, Ms. Han is a collaborative pianist at both Northwestern University (Bienen School of Music) and DePaul School of Music, Chicago Stradivari Society and joined the collaborative piano faculty at the Heifetz International Music Institute since 2011 and Cremona International music festival in 2015.
Sheng-Yuan Kuan
Praised for her “admirable technical finesse and expressive flair” (Baltimore Sun), pianist Sheng-Yuan Kuan has garnered enthusiastic receptions for her solo and chamber music performances at the Kennedy Center, Weill Recital Hall, Taiwan National Concert Hall, and various music festivals and concert series throughout the US. Sheng-Yuan’s collaborations with renowned musicians such as Nobuko Imai, Stefan Jackiw, Stephen Taylor, Richard Stolzman, Keng-Yuen Tseng, Chad Hoopes, members of the Parker Quartet and Apollo Trio, Sir Angel Romero, Time for Three, and Latin Grammy Award winning flautist Nestor Torres, reflect her passion in making chamber music of eclectic styles.
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Sheng-Yuan holds a D.M.A. degree from the Peabody Conservatory, M.M. degree from Yale School of Music, and B.M. degree from the Manhattan School of Music, studying with famous pedagogues like Boris Slutsky, Peter Frankl, and Constance Keene. She obtained awards at competitions worldwide, including the 13th Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna (Best Female Pianist Award, 2009), the 12th Taipei Chopin International Piano Competition (3rd Prize, 2008), Corpus Christi International Competition in Texas (2nd Prize, 2008), and New York Kosciuszko Chopin Piano Competition (3rd Prize, 2003).
Currently a resident in south Florida, Sheng-Yuan performs regularly as a member of A's Duo, Con Brio Ensemble, Scherzo Trio, Trio Rodin, and South Florida Chamber Ensemble. She serves as piano faculty at the Heifetz International Music Institute as well as staff collaborative pianist and adjunct keyboard instructor at Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, FL.
Tatjana Rankovich
Described by The New York Times as an “astonishingly good pianist,” Tatjana Rankovich has performed throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Central and South America.
She is the first pianist ever to play the First, Second and Third Piano Concertos of Nicolas Flagello, recording them with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and the Slovak Philharmonic, which were released to unanimous praise and chosen for one of the five “best of the year” recordings by Fanfare magazine. Many other acclaimed discs were recorded for Phoenix USA, Naxos, Albany, Artek, Dezil, Citadel and a highly praised 3-disk set of live recordings for IBOX.
Born in Belgrade, Serbia, a Fulbright Scholar and a laureate of numerous awards, she holds her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Juilliard School and her Doctorate from Rutgers University. Her teachers and mentors were of the legendary Leschetizky and Liszt traditions of piano performance: Arbo Valdma, Josef Raieff, Clifton Matthews, Claude Frank, Daniel Epstein and Benjamin Kaplan.
Dr. Rankovich is a recipient of the prestigious Irene Alm Memorial Prize for excellence in performance and scholarly research at Rutgers University for her thesis: “Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto: the unpublished revisions and its Doppelgänger chamber versions.” In 2008, she was honored with a coveted State Award, “Golden Badge,” which is awarded annually by the Serbian Ministry of Diaspora in Belgrade. Tatjana Rankovich is a Founding director of the Music & More SummerFest – International Classical Music Festival in Trebinje, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and she is presently on the piano faculty at the Mannes College of Music in New York City.