Competition 2021 Results
Overall
Sooah Jeon (Junior)
(Blaire) Nayoun Kim (Senior)
Leland Ko - Cello (College)
Division
Liyuan Xie/Hana Mundiya (College)
Jinan Laurentia Woo (Junior)
Spencer Rubin/Bethany Bobbs (Senior)
College
Leland Ko (Cello
Liyuan Xie (Violin)
Hana Mundiya (Violin)
Leland Ko (Cello)
Leland Philip Ko (b. 1998) is a cellist of Chinese-Canadian descent from the Boston area. He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in venues across America’s east coast, such as Merkin Concert Hall and Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in New York, and Jordan Hall and Sanders Theatre in Boston, as well as internationally in Sweden, Israel, and Spain, including Auditorio Manuel de Falla in Granada. Leland’s most recent accolades include second prize at the inaugural Bader and Overton Canadian Cello Competition in 2020, and appearing as a finalist in the 2020 Young Concert Artists International Auditions.
Despite growing up a part of Boston’s strong youth orchestra culture, Leland has often sought out chamber music at various summer festivals over the years, having attended the Perlman Music Program’s Summer Music School and its Chamber Music Workshop, and Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute.
Leland’s love for chamber music has also led him to be an Artist in Residence of New York Piano Society (NYPS), as well as a frequent performer on Swedish pianist Per Tengstrand’s concert series “Music on Park Ave” at Scandinavia House in NYC, and former Music Director of Opus 21, a student-run chamber music collective at Princeton.
Leland was a long-time student of Ronald Lowry and Paul Katz before attending Princeton University, where he graduated with a B.A. degree in German Literature. Currently, he is pursuing a Master’s degree at The Juilliard School under the teaching of Minhye Clara Kim and Timothy Eddy. Since the end of 2020, Leland plays on the ex-Peled, ex-Greenhouse Thomas Dodd from 1790.
Leland was also a competitive long-distance runner for several years, but remains loyal to his original passion of tennis, both as a player and even more so as a fan.
Hana Mundiya (Violin)
Hana Mundiya made her concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 13 at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center as a part of the orchestra’s Young People’s Concerts. Her recent top prizes include the 25th International Brahms Competition in Austria, 9th Leopold Mozart Competition in Germany, Kosciuszko Foundation Wieniawski Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, World Bach Competition, and Princeton University Concerto Competition. The Allgemeine Zeitung described her performance at the Kurhaus in Wiesbaden as a soloist with the Mainz Kammerorchester as “convincing and technically impeccable.”
A strong believer in the universal ideals of the United Nations Charter, she is a dedicated member of the UN Chamber Music Society, and performs regularly at the UN Headquarters, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center for UNHCR, UNESCO, the Red Cross, and Mount Sinai Hospital. As President of Opus 21, Princeton University's chamber music collective, she led a collaboration with and now frequently performs at the Music on Park Avenue series at Scandinavia House in NYC. She is the Artist-in-Residence for the New York Piano Society.
As a baroque violinist, she has appeared with The Academy of Ancient Music at Walt Disney Concert Hall and San Francisco Early Music Society, and with the English Concert as a principal member of Early Music Princeton.
Born to a Japanese mother and Indian father, Hana is a native of SoHo, New York City. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Princeton University, and is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Catherine Cho and Naoko Tanaka, and Robert Mealy for baroque violin. Her past teachers include Donald Weilerstein, Eric Wyrick, Nancy Wilson, Detlef Hahn, and Bojan Čičić. She is a graduate of Juilliard Pre-College and the United Nations International School in New York City.
Liyuan Xie
Born in 2000, Chinese violinist Liyuan Xie started playing the violin at age four and is currently a student of Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory. He studied previously with Binyou Zhou in Shanghai Conservatory before coming to the United States. His other mentors include Lei Fang and Jiayin Huang.
Liyuan has collaborated with the orchestra such as Shanghai Philharmonic, Shanghai Opera House, Nanjing Philharmonic, Qingdao Symphony and Shanghai Chamber Orchestras. As a chamber musician, he has performed for the ‘From The Top’ and ‘WQXR’ channel as well as in Jordan Hall and Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival.
He also served as a concertmaster of National Youth Orchestra Of China, Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra, NEC Symphony and the others. His concert engagements in season 2020-2021 include performing Beethoven and Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Nanjing Philharmonic Orchestra, solo appearance throughout the major cities of China and playing as a member of his hometown chamber ensemble ‘Nanjing Quartet’.
Seniors
Spencer Rubin (Oboe)
(Blaire) Nayoun Kim (Violin)
Bethany Bobbs (Cello)
Bethany Bobbs
Bethany Bobbs, a senior in high school, is a scholarship student in the Juilliard School Pre College, a training center for advance pre-college musicians, and the Perlman Music Program. Bethany currently studies cello with Astrid Schween, and piano with her mother, Catherine Bobbs.
Bethany made her cello solo debut at the age of 9 performing with the Cleveland Institute Chamber Orchestra, and has subsequently gone on to solo with many symphonies including the Delaware Symphony, Georgia Philharmonic Symphony, The Fort Bend Symphony, Brazosport Symphony, The Houston Symphony of the North, The Houston Youth Symphony, Summit Symphony, New Jersey Intergeneration Symphony, Sinfonietta Nova, Ambler Symphony, the Ocala Symphony, Old York Road Symphony, and The Sewanee Music Festival Orchestra twice as their concerto winner for two years in a row. Bethany has won many awards including 2nd place in the Lynn Harrel Competition, the grand prize in the Houston Symphony of the North Young Artist competition, the HMTA Teachers Concerto Competition, and the Georgia Philharmonic Samuel Fordis Competition, as well as a merit winner of the prestigious YoungArts Award and 3rd place, being one of the youngest competitors, in the prestigious Houston Symphony League Concerto Competition. In addition, Bethany won the Rachel Barton Pine 2017 Foundation Scholarship, 3rd place in the 2016 National Federation of Music Teachers Association Stillman Kelly Award, a national piano and instrumental competition, and, the 2015 Mary Alice Cox Cello Award, their youngest winner on record. Bethany loves performing for charity organizations, retirement facilities, and hospitals, and won the Houston Music Doing Good Scholarship in 2015 and 2016 for her charitable performances. Last spring Bethany and her twin sister, Susanna, put together an online charity concert called “Harmony for Healing” and raised $3000 for artists negatively affected by COVID-19. The youngest of 8 musical children, Bethany is grateful for her family’s love and support as well as the instruction and inspiration of Toby and Itzhak Perlman’s Perlman Music Program, Astrid Schween and the Juilliard Pre-College program.
Spencer Rubin
Spencer Rubin is a student at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division where he studies with Elaine Douvas and Yousun Chung. Spencer was a 2020 National YoungArts Foundation Finalist and he will be featured on National Public Radio’s “From the Top” program in early 2021. As a soloist, Spencer has performed with the New York Chamber Players Orchestra, and he will perform with the Queensboro Symphony Orchestra and the Island Symphony Orchestra during their 2021-2022 seasons. He has earned other numerous first place and grand prize awards in international competitions including the New York Young Virtuoso Competition (where he also won the Young Virtuoso Prize), ENKOR International Music Competition, Vivo International Competition, Rondo Young Artist (Vanguard) Competition, American Fine Arts Festival, National Young Maestro Competition (where he also won the best overall performance award), American Association for Development of the Gifted and Talented International Young Gifted Musicians Festival, Prima Volta Music Competition and Grand Prize Virtuoso International Competition. As a chamber musician, Spencer was a grand prize winner of the National League of Performing Arts Competition and a two-time winner of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Chamber Competition. Spencer is an alumnus of the Aspen Music Festival (where he was the youngest oboist ever to attend), Hidden Valley Music Festival, Juilliard Summer Winds Festival, Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Orchestra and the Interlochen Arts Camp. He was also invited to join the National Youth Orchestra of the United States (NYO). Spencer has participated in numerous masterclasses including winning a competition to perform in a MET Orchestra Musicians Masterclass.
(Blaire) Nayoun Kim
Nayoun was born in South Korea and began playing violin at the age of four. She was admitted to the Yewon Arts Middle School before she got admitted into the Pre-college division of The Juilliard School at the age of twelve where she currently studies with Professor Li Lin.
She was awarded both the first and grand prize of for the CAI International Competition (2021), winner for the Juilliard Pre-College Concerto Competition (2019), finalist for From the Top, and also won a 5th Hong Kong International Violin Competition when she was eight years old.
She has also won numbers of National Competitions while she was living in Korea including getting featured on the Korean Educational Program as the violin prodigy when she was 9 with her mentor/ professor Ik-Hwan Bae, and Korean Youth Newspaper as the grand-prize winner of their competition, resulting a scholarship.
Nayoun has performed number of performances in variety of places. She also went on international tour with orchestras such as An Die Musik Philharmonia and the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea and the Ukraine.
She was a performer for the Young Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition's opening ceremony in Seoul, South Korea.
Nayoun was selected as one of twelve in Crans-Montana Summer Camp hosted by Maestro Shlomo Mintz at the age of 12 and she is planning to attend the Perlman Music Program starting this summer 2021.
Nayoun is currently a junior in Academy of the Holy Angels, Demarest New Jersey.
Juniors
Sooah Jeon (Flute)
Jinan Laurentia Woo (Violin)
Sooah Jeon (Flute)
Sooah Jeon has already distinguished herself as one of the most promising young flutists of her generation. She quickly demonstrated enormous talent since beginning her flute studies at the young age of seven.
Six months after she started learning the flute she won several national and international competitions. At the age of nine, Sooah was officially
announced as the world's youngest flutist to receive a Performance Diploma with distinction award from the Associate of the Royal Schools of Music in the United Kingdom. Subsequently Sooah was awarded first prize in various music competitions in the United States, including the American Protege, international Grande Music Competition and the New York International Music Competition. In 2019 she won the first prize in the New York Flute
Club Young Musicians Contest, the South Carolina Flute Society Competition, the 92nd Street Y Concerto Competition in New York and the Camerata Artists International Concerto Competition, where she was the youngest grand prize winner.
As a soloist, Sooah has performed at New York's leading concert halls, including the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, Buttenwiser Hall
at the 92nd Street Y and Merkin Concert Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, as well as Weill Recital Hall and Isaac Stem Auditorium at Carnegie Hall.
Since her solo debut with the New Jersey Camerata Orchestra at Merkin Hall at the age of eleven, she has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Concert Festival Orchestra, New York Chamber Players Orchestra and the 92Y Orchestra. Sooah has also appeared in various international concert halls. She performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Cite de la Musique Amphitheatre in Paris as the first prize and exceptional young talent special prize winner of the 2019 Grand prize Virtuoso International Music Competition.
Jinan Woo
Jinan Laurentia Woo is an 8th grader at Harvard-Westlake School and currently studies the violin with Li Lin and Stella Chen of the Juilliard School. She was a Honors Merit Scholarship fellow at the Colburn School, where she studies with Robert Lipsett and Fabiola Kim. She was admitted to the junior division of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts at four years old, where she studied with Michael Ma and Hong-Ying Ho. Jinan made her solo concert debut at ten years old at a prodigy series concert sponsored by the Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation and an orchestral debut at twelve with Incheon Philharmonic. Jinan has taken part in various music festivals, including the Innsbrook Institute, Center Stage Strings and the Aspen Music Festival and School. In 2019, she won 1st Prize at the Zhuhai International Mozart Competition for Young Musicians.