MEET THE JURY MEMBERS
PETER MACK
Peter Mack was born in Ireland, where he had his early training with Frank Heneghan at the Dublin College of Music. Subsequent study was at Trinity College, Dublin, and with Bela Siki at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and at the University of Washington where he earned his doctorate in piano performance.
Mack has performed throughout the United States and Europe, as well as in Australia and the former Soviet Union. He is the winner of the New Orleans, Young Keyboard Artists and Pacific International Piano Competitions. His prize in the Sherman–Clay competition included a Steinway grand piano. Mack is well known for his extensive repertoire, having performed twenty–five concertos with orchestras. He is equally in demand as a performer, clinician, convention artist, and teacher, and his pupils are frequent winners of local, national, and international competitions.
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“Mack is one of those lucky ones, born with a completely balanced set of talents. He has perfect piano hands, his technique is all but infallible, he has boundless temperament, style and taste, and above all, he communicates directly…. In all capacities he is indefatigable….”
–Los Angeles Times
hanbo ma
Pianist Hanbo Ma is recognized as one of today's most promising emerging artists, having performed in solo recitals and with orchestras across Asia, Europe, and North America. Her career began with an appearance at Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio, at the age of 17, where her performance of Islamey by Balakirev received high praise. She then garnered further acclaim by winning the San Jose International Piano Competition, the St. Andrews International Piano Competition, and the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, among others, and was selected as the only recipient of the Cobos Piano Prize given by the Eastman School of Music in 2015.
Dr. Ma has given numbers of concert tours such as an All-Liszt recital tour in North America and Europe sponsored by the Embassy of Hungary in Washington D.C, Liszt Memorial Museum in Budapest, Hungry and Hungarian Cultural center in London, England; a series of concerts and master classes on French and Russian Music at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, East Tennessee State University, Biola University and Wuhan Conservatory in China; themed concert tour “Music Around the World” focusing on music written by six different composers from five different countries sponsored by the Steinway & Sons and Parsons Music, etc.
An active pianist, Dr. Ma not only enjoys solo performances but also collaborating with chamber groups and contemporary composers. She was invited to be one of the twelve scholars at the Heartland Chamber Music Festival, where her chamber performance was live-streamed on Kansas Public Radio. Dr. Ma also collaborated with a string quintet from the University of Southern California to perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2, conducting from the piano. She has premiered numerous works, including the world premiere of Ben Kwok’s Sounds From the Lung Fields, Dr. Chih-long Hu’s Formosa Caprices, and Elizabeth Baker’s Four Plane, a piece the composer dedicated to Dr. Ma. Her most recent project involves preparing to record and premiere composer Michael Colina’s Piano Concerto with The Florida Symphony.
Dr. Ma holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music. While completing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance at USC, she also studied composition and orchestral conducting with National Medal of Arts recipient Morten Lauridsen and former Vice President of the New England Conservatory of Music Larry Livingston. Dr. Ma is the founder and artistic director of the Cadence Collective Foundation. Her free educational online content, the "How to Play..." series, has gained significant recognition with more than 40,000 subscribers. In 2023, she was inducted into the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame, alongside piano pedagogues from prestigious institutions such as the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her latest CD, "From Schumann, With Love," is now available on all major streaming platforms.
stephen siek
Stephen Siek, a Professor Emeritus at Wittenberg University, has concertized extensively throughout North America and the UK, and is the author of England's Piano Sage: The Life and Teachings of Tobias Matthay, as well and the highly acclaimed Dictionary for the Modern Pianist. A contributor to the Revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, his scholarly writings on historic pianism have appeared in journals such as the Piano Quarterly, International Piano, and the Piano Journal of the European Piano Teachers' Association. He has also annotated over a dozen major collections of recordings by artists such as Dame Myra Hess, Wilhelm Kempff, Dame Moura Lympany, Cyril Smith, and Ruth Slenczynska for various labels, including APR, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, and Marston. In addition, his own recording of The Philadelphia Sonatas by the Scottish-American composer Alexander Reinagle has been highly praised.
Currently Director of the Emeritus College Academy for Continued Learning at Arizona State University, he also serves as a Faculty Associate at ASU, where he has given numerous courses on topics ranging from “The Life and Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff” to “Frédéric Chopin: The Poetic Revolutionary.” He holds the B. Mus. and the M. Mus. degrees from the University of Maryland, and a Ph.D. from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. In May of 2019, he was named an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
radmila stojanovic-kiriluk
Dr. Radmila Stojanovic-Kiriluk, NCTM, is a certified teacher, performer, author, editor, and lecturer, currently holding a position a residential faculty member and director of piano studies at Mesa Community College (MCC) in Mesa, Arizona. In this role, she teaches private piano lessons, group piano, piano pedagogy, and piano literature. She possesses a comprehensive background in music education, having spent over twenty years at MCC, served as a faculty associate at the ASU School of Music for thirteen years, and held a professorship at a Music College in Niš, Serbia for six years.
Radmila earned a DMA degree at Arizona State University and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Belgrade, Serbia. She has performed solo and collaborated with orchestras, instrumentalists, and choirs across various countries. Her recordings have been featured on radio and television, and she frequently serves as an adjudicator for piano competitions, national exams, and festivals. With a keen interest in exploring new subjects, she has spent over twenty years presenting a range of topics on piano and music at conferences and workshops. Her work was published by VDM Verlag (Germany), Toccata Classics (London), FJH (USA), and Schott Publishing Company (Germany). She also wrote several articles for Clavier Companion and American Music Teacher (AMT) as well as for EPTA Piano Bulletin in the Netherlands.
Radmila is currently serving as the President of the Arizona Music Teachers Association as well as the board member of the East Valley Music Teacher Association and the Avanti Fund. In 2018, Radmila was awarded the Arizona State Honor Teacher Award. She resides in Mesa, Arizona, with her family.
CLÁUDIO SOARES
Prof. Cláudio J. Lisbôa Soares (pianist)
Music studies in Brazil with Dr.Prof.Miguel Proenca and et Escola Nacional de Musica (Rio de Janeiro)
After he won prizes at “Nato Henn” and “Giomar Novais Piano Competition”, he got a scholarship from The German DAAD program to continue his studies in 1977 and 78 in Hanover, Hochschule fur Music und Darstelende Kunst with Prof. Hans Leygraf. Another scholarship from the Hamburg University in 1979 to 1981 and studied in Hamburg Hochschule fur Musik with Prof. Yara Bernette.
Since 1983 living in Japan, Claudio Soares appeared as soloist with Osaka Chamber Orchestra and Prague Soloists and has made radio, television appearances, recitals and concertos in Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Syria, Italy, USA and Japan. He is also playing duos and accompaniment for singers.
Mr. Soares is author of the book “the World of Sound –Soares’ Piano Instruction” (YAMAHA Music Media Corporation) and “Bach Piano Works – Guide Book for Studding and Teaching” by the same publisher.
He is heavily involved in music education and piano pedagogy. His students have won many prizes in all-important competitions in Japan ( PTNA, Tokyo Music Competition, Mainichi Competition etc) and many international competitions in Japan and abroad (1991 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, 2007 International Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibeaud Competition, 2000 ,2002,2004 Ettlingen Piano Competition, 2014 Concurso International de Piano Premio Jaén, 2010 Geneva International Music Competition, 2016 Robert Schumann International Competition and others. He was many times awarded the “Teachers Price “ and the “Toyota Price” by JPTA for his pedagogy engagement and was warded the Culture Merit Diploma from Sakai City (2015) and Osaka Government (2018).
Mr. Soares is at present Professor at the Piano Performance department of Osaka College of Music, Doshisha Woman’s University. He is also the founder and president of the Sakai Piano Association.
