On Saturday, April 6th, the 2024 Piano Duo Festival was held at the Greene Music Recital Hall. 31 teams from 16 studios were presented in three successful recitals. These student teams performed in four competitive categories and in one non-competitive category. Thanks to the following studios for their participation: Anna Stal, Carol Ong-Chen, April Lin, Isabelle Roux, Yulia Atoyan, Eunice Ahn, Galina Talis, Vivian Wu, Yuko Maruyama, Yun-Yin Wu, Anna Vasilyeva, Lori Vickers, Luba Ugorski, Kathy Kim, Johee Lee, and Irina Bessonova. Also, big thank-you to our volunteer teachers Vivian Wu, Carol Ong-Chen, and Yuko Maruyama for helping the event run smoothly. Our judges, Steve Baker and Joanne Stohs, were very impressed with the level of playing and want to congratulate all teachers and students. See you next year!

presented by San Diego Music Society, Jean Will Presents and CCAE

Paul Tseng (cello) has performed as a soloist, recitalist, orchestral, and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and South Africa in concert halls such as Avery Fischer Hall, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Cairo Royal Opera House in Egypt, The Royal Cultural Center in Amman, Jordan.  As a chamber musician, Paul has performed with luminaries such as Earl Carlyss and Ruth Inglefield, and as a member of the Delphian Trio, which won First Prize in the Baltimore Chamber Music Awards Competition. The second cellist ever to be awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Peabody Conservatory (Johns Hopkins University), Paul specialized in the cello music of Prokofiev. He also holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School. He has held various faculty positions in New York, Maryland, West Virginia, New York, and Washington DC. Paul is a founding member of the Logos Trio and the artistic director of the San Diego Music Society.

Dan Yu enjoys a multifaceted career as a classical pianist and piano educator.  After he studied piano with renowned piano educator Jane Bastien, he worked with famed Russian pianist Vitaly Margulis for his University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) piano performance bachelor degree, and obtained his master’s degree in piano performance under Professor Antoinette Perry at the University of Southern California (USC).  He had won numerous competitions including Musical Merit of Greater San Diego, La Jolla Young Artist Competition, and many others.  He is an active performer on the San Diego classical music scene.  This year, he played solo and collaborative recitals at Encinitas Library, Fallbrook Library, and Conrad Performing Arts Center.  As a teacher, his students have won many competitions in San Diego. He is a board member of MTAC (Music Teachers Association of California), and also the chairperson for MTAC’s Piano Duo Festival for the past 4 years.  Dan served on the jury of the Hong Kong International Music Foundation Competition (North America branch) in 2017, the 3rd San Diego International Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in 2022, and this year, GOCAA (Global Outstanding Chinese Artists Association) regional competition in San Diego. 

The Baker-Baum Concert Hall
Saturday, April 22, 2023 at 7:00 PM

The Global Outstanding Chinese Artists Association (GOCAA) is a Non-profit Arts Association recognized by the U.S. Federal Government ( Approval Number: 47-45494244 ). As a comprehensive artistic organization, GOCAA members are active in many forms of arts including musical arts, visual arts, dance, and other art forms.

The San Diego Preliminary will be held on April 22, 2023 at Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. More than one hundred contestants will compete in piano, string and vocal categories and the first and second prize of each division goes to the final in New York and Boston.

The awards and performance concert invites well-known musicians from local, Orange and Los Angeles, featuring Yuko Maruyama, Yingying Zhang, Yihan Chen, Justin Hansen, Dan Yu, Wei Feng, Paul Tseng, Rob Watson, Xuefeng Wang, Meixuan Li and many others.