Honens Competition juries include concert pianists and other individuals (artist managers, collaborative musicians, presenters, etc.) from the musical world who play a meaningful role in a concert artist’s career. All jurors have extensive knowledge of the piano literature and represent and / or are aware of the qualities an artist must possess in order to build and sustain a career in today’s musical world.
* indicates country of origin / country of residence
Tanya Bannister
United Kingdom / United States*
Lauded by The Washington Post for playing “…with intelligence, poetry and proportion,” pianist Tanya Bannister has made a versatile career that is immersed in tradition combined with an entrepreneurship that seeks to create projects that inspire genuine connections between music and the world we live in.
Bannister is currently President of Concert Artists Guild, and Co-Founder and Artistic Director of AlpenKammerMusik Festival (Austria). Bannister has also co-founded Roadmaps Festival in New York City, an artistic, humanitarian and cultural venture. Recent festivals have centered around the crisis in Syria and climate change.
Bannister has been a winner of Concert Artists Guild International Competition and the New Orleans International Piano Competition confirming her status among the leading pianists of her generation.
In addition to mastering the traditional repertoire, she has a deep affinity for contemporary music and has premiered numerous works written for her, including Christopher Theofanidis, David del Tredici, Suzanne Farrin, Harold Meltzer, and Sidney Corbett. She has released several CDs, including piano concerti of Mozart, Chopin, and Schubert arranged with string quintet, which was selected for special mention by The New York Times.
Born to an English father and Japanese mother, Bannnister started her musical education in Hong Kong and continued in London, Italy, Germany, and the US. Bannister holds degrees from the Royal Academy of Music in London under Christopher Elton and Hamish Milne, Yale University with Claude Frank, and New York’s Mannes School of Music, where she studied with Richard Goode.
Tema Blackstone
Canada / United States*
Tema Blackstone’s rich and varied life in music has grown out of her career as a pianist. Her influential work encompasses advocacy of music and musicians as a force for personal and societal well-being, and the passing on of the legacy of great music to new generations.
After earning her master’s degree in performance at Boston University, studying with Anthony di Bonaventura, Blackstone continued doctoral studies with Hung-Kuan Chen. She served as Chair of the Piano Department at Mount Royal University from 1999 to 2006. She has been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory’s preparatory division and the Walnut Hill School (Boston) and has lectured and taught at the Shanghai Conservatory since 2005. She assists Hung-Kuan Chen in the College Division and together, they have taught and coached hundreds of young pianists, including such notable performers as Yuja Wang, Sean Chen, Niu Niu, Maxim Lando, and Lukas Vondracek.
Blackstone has made the mentoring and supporting of young pianists a major focus. She co-founded the Millennium 3 Music Recital Series in Boston (1990) and The Connection at Mount Royal Conservatory in Calgary, which funded pianists from China and North America in Canada (1999). Since 2012, she has been President of the Artemisia Foundation in Boston, which creates opportunities for promising young artists to be presented in high-profile venues and to be involved in community outreach.
She has taught, lectured, and performed at such international music festivals as Morningside Music Bridge, the Banff Festival, the annual Shanghai Conservatory Piano Academy, and the Mosaic Festival (US), and has been presented by the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts and teaches annually at their summer festival. She is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School.
Karim Said
Jordan / United Kingdom*
An award-winning pianist, conductor, and composer, Karim Said is known for his deeply informed and creative programming. His passion for diverse programming is reflected in his critically acclaimed albums Echoes from an Empire and Legacy. His first major concerto performances were in 2009 at the Barbican Centre (London) with the English Chamber Orchestra under the baton of the late Sir Colin Davis, and at the Royal Albert Hall at BBC Proms (London) with Daniel Barenboim.
Said has performed on some of the world’s most renowned stages, captivating audiences both as a solo pianist and chamber musician. This was made possible largely through his association with Daniel Barenboim, who first heard Said perform at the age of 10, saying: “what you cannot learn, he already knows.” Highlights include appearances at such festivals and venues as the Aldeburgh Festival (UK), Philharmonie (Germany), Philharmonie de Paris, Teatro Colon (Argentina), the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Russia), and the Musashino Concert Hall (Japan). His love for Schoenberg’s music led him to perform the composer’s complete published solo works at London’s Southbank Centre, as part of The Rest Is Noise festival.
Most recently, he co-founded the Amman Chamber Orchestra and Amman Institute of Performing Arts in Jordan, aiming to create a vibrant hub for musical education and performances in the Middle East. His dedication to music and his native community has earned him international recognition.
Said is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (London, UK).
Micah Yui
Japan / United States*
Born in Japan, Korean-Canadian pianist Micah Yui has been described by the Los Angeles Times as playing with “blazing enthusiasm, power, and technical assurance.” Yui has appeared with orchestras, in recital, and as a chamber musician on three continents. She has performed for dignitaries of Japan and Canada and has been awarded three Canada Council grants, the Edmonton Civic Award, and the Alberta Achievement Award. A winner of numerous competitions and prizes, her recording of the Bloch Concerto Symphonique with the London Symphony was awarded Record of the Year by Stereophile Magazine.
Yui studied at The Juilliard School (US) with Bella Davidovich, and at the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto) and the Peabody Conservatory (US) with Leon Fleisher. Other influential teachers were Boris Zarankin, Inna Perkis, Marietta Orlov, and Giovanni Valentini. Passionate about vocal literature, Yui has worked intensively with renowned lieder pianist, Graham Johnson, with whom she collaborated with at the Ravinia Festival (US).
Committed to mentoring the next generations of artists, Yui has served on the faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Peabody Institute, Heifetz International Music Institute (US), Music Institute of Chicago, and Montecito International Music Festival (US). Her students have been accepted into top institutions and have won multiple competitions. Yui currently lives in Los Angeles where she is currently on the piano faculty at the Colburn School’s Community School of Performing Arts and the Music Academy and is the Co-Director of the Colburn Piano Seminar with pianist Fabio Bidini.
The First Jury, comprised of four members, evaluates the 50 Quarterfinal video recorded recitals and interviews, and selects ten pianists to advance to the Semifinals in Calgary.
* indicates country of origin / country of residence
The First Jury is:
Sara Davis Buechner
United States / United States*
Sara Davis Buechner is one of the leading concert pianists of our time. She has been praised worldwide as a musician of “intelligence, integrity and all-encompassing technical prowess” (The New York Times); lauded for her “fascinating and astounding virtuosity” (Philippine Star), and her “thoughtful artistry in the full service of music” (Washington Post); and celebrated for her performances which are “never less than 100% committed and breathtaking” (Pianoforte Magazine).
In her twenties, Buechner was the winner of a bouquet of prizes at the world’s premiere piano competitions: Queen Elisabeth (Belgium), Leeds, Salzburg, Sydney, and Vienna. She won the Gold Medal at the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition (US) and was a Bronze Medalist of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition (Russia).
With an active repertoire of more than 100 concertos ranging from A (Albeníz) to Z (Zimbalist), she has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s prominent orchestras. Audiences throughout North and South America have applauded Buechner’s recitals in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and the Hollywood Bowl; and she enjoys wide success throughout Asia where she tours annually.
Buechner can be seen and heard on numerous live video and audio recordings on her personal website, YouTube and SoundCloud channels, and Facebook page.
In 2016, Buechner joined the prestigious piano faculty of the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University (US). She is also an Honorary Visiting Professor of Music at the University of Shanghai (China) and has given masterclasses and served on international competition juries around the globe. She is a dedicated Yamaha Artist.
Nicolas Namoradze
Georgia / United States*
Pianist and composer Nicolas Namoradze came to international attention in 2018 upon winning the triennial Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada—among the largest prizes in classical music. His recitals around the globe have been met with universal critical praise, and recent album releases have received extraordinary accolades including the Choc de Classica, Record of the Month in Limelight, Instrumental Disc of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Editor’s Choice in Presto Classical, and Critics’ Choice in International Piano.
His current activities include residencies at the Konzerthaus Dortmund (Germany), Antwerp Symphony Orchestra (Belgium), and Verbier Festival (Switzerland); recitals at concert halls including New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, and the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan; festival appearances at Tanglewood (US), Banff (Canada), Gstaad (Switzerland), Santa Fe (US) and more; and performances with orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel (Switzerland), and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI (Italy), with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Karina Canellakis, Hans Graf, John Axelrod, Ken-David Masur, Finnegan Downie-Dear, and Daniele Rustioni.
After completing his undergraduate in Budapest, Vienna, and Florence, Namoradze moved to New York for his master’s at The Juilliard School and his doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center. His teachers and mentors have included Emanuel Ax, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Zoltán Kocsis, Matti Raekallio, András Schiff, and Eliso Virsaladze in piano, and John Corigliano in composition. Namoradze serves on the staff of The Juilliard School, where he deputizes for the piano faculty.
Marianne Perron
Canada / Canada*
Marianne Perron has worked in music for over 30 years, mainly as a music programmer and an artistic manager in the orchestral world. Throughout her professional career, her commitment has been driven by excellence, authenticity, creativity, and collaboration to contribute to the development of the musical world, but also to make music and the arts accessible to as many people as possible as well as creating bridges between different communities.
After completing studies in violin performance and music history at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Perron went on to earn a master’s degree in musicology from the Université de Montréal. With a passion for music and a strong interest in management, she completed a Specialized Graduate Diploma in arts and culture management and a certification in corporate finances at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal.
Beginning in 1997, she worked in the music programming department of Orchestre national de Lyon / Auditorium de Lyon (France) for three years. Perron returned to Québec to join the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal where she held different positions over the years, including Director of Music Programming in 2010. Among her most notable achievements in this position, she was entrusted with exceptional responsibility for the entire conception of the 2020 / 2021 and 2021 / 2022 seasons. In 2021, she was selected for the newly created position of Senior Director of the Artistic Sector. Working with a competent and committed team, she is responsible for the programming of the musical seasons and artistic projects, tours, recordings, education, and musicians of the orchestra.
Robert Roux
United States / United States*
Pianist Robert Roux began his career at age 10 with a performance on the nationally televised Lawrence Welk Show. Since then, he has been a winner of several piano competitions in the United States including the United States Information Agency’s Artistic Ambassador Competition and the International Piano Recording Competition. Roux’s performances include appearances at the White House, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Merkin Concert Hall, and Stude Concert Hall (US) on the Horowitz Steinway, as well as St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music (Russia), Villa Pignatelli (Italy), and the Salle Cortot (France). He has toured as recitalist and concerto soloist in 16 countries.
Roux’s students have been frequent prizewinners and award recipients internationally. He has been Chair of the keyboard department at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music since 1990. He has served on the faculty of the prestigious Van Cliburn Institute, PianoSummer at New Paltz State University of New York, the Moscow International Piano Masterclasses, the Paris International Piano Sessions, the Association of German Music Schools, the Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival (Italy), and the International Certificate for Piano Artists program at École Normale Supérieure (Paris). In 2005, he received the Julia Mile Chance Award for Excellence in Teaching, one of Rice University’s highest honours. As a founding member of the Prague International Piano Masterclasses, he was Associate Director of the festival from 1997 to 2007. He is listed in Who’s Who in America (2003) and is also interviewed as one of the top teachers in Benjamin Saver’s publication, The Most Wanted Piano Teachers in the USA. Roux is a Steinway Artist.
* indicates country of origin / country of residence
The Second Jury is:
Philippe Bianconi
France / France*
Since winning the Silver Medal at the Van Cliburn International Competition in 1985, Philippe Bianconi has been leading an international career, pursuing his musical itinerary, and patiently carving out his path far from the media hype.
His most recent recording, Ravel complete piano works, was released in September 2023 on La Dolce Volta label to critical acclaim and was hailed by The New York Times. His previous recordings with the same label include albums of Chopin, Schumann, and Debussy.
In 2020, Bianconi released the Brahms concertos with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic under the baton of Michal Nesterowicz (Printemps des Arts de Monte Carlo label).
Bianconi has appeared with North America’s finest orchestras, including those of Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Saint-Louis, Montréal, under the baton of Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Kurt Masur, and David Zinman.
In Europe, Bianconi has played with many orchestras, including the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Berlin Radio Symphony, and Netherlands Philharmonic. He toured Australia a number of times, performing with the Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, and West Australian Symphony in Perth.
An active and acclaimed recital artist, Bianconi has appeared at the Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall (New York), in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Houston, the Wigmore Hall (London), the Berlin Philharmonie, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Paris), as well as in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, and Sydney.
From 2013 to 2017, he was the Director of the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau. Bianconi has been teaching at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris since 2018.
Jenny Bilfield
United States / United States*
Jenny Bilfield has dedicated her career to nurturing artists and fostering transformative creative partnerships. Her early training as a pianist and composer complements her collaborative spirit and fearless, inclusive leadership.
As President & CEO of Washington Performing Arts, Bilfield has positioned the organization as an incubator of dynamic mainstage, community, and educational programming. Throughout her career, she has commissioned over 75 works across genres, built platforms for deeply sourced programming, and has advocated for public arts funding as well as the protection of artists’ creative expression and intellectual property. Within the arts field, Bilfield has led efforts to mitigate race-based inequities and has also been a vocal proponent for accountability as a lasting outcome of the #MeToo movement.
Bilfield’s skill for cultivating partnerships can be seen across fields, from higher education to arts presenting to commercial music publishing. She was part of the core planning team for Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall. As President of Boosey & Hawkes she acquired transformative catalogs and spearheaded international composer-focused initiatives. At Washington Performing Arts, Bilfield’s vision amplifies the historic “everybody in, nobody out” ethos, with deeper investments in classical and gospel music, local artists, and special productions spotlighting American narratives and historically overlooked cultural icons.
Bilfield has received ASCAP’s Adventurous Programming Award and the Helen M. Thompson Award from the League of American Orchestras. She has been named among the 30 Key Influencers in the Arts by Musical America and among the “Most Powerful Women in Washington” by Washingtonian Magazine. She serves on the Chamber Music America board and is an Emeritus Honorary Commander of the U.S. Air Force Band. Bilfield studied at the University of Pennsylvania and privately with Walter Ponce, Harris Goldsmith, Edward Bilous, Jay Reise, and Sylvan Levin. She is married to composer Joel Phillip Friedman and they have an adult daughter, Hallie Eliza Friedman, and two African parrots.
Janina Fialkowska
Canada / Germany*
For almost 50 years, concert pianist Janina Fialkowska has enchanted audiences and critics around the world. She has been praised for her musical integrity, her refreshing natural approach and her unique piano sound thus becoming “one of the Grandes Dames of piano playing” (Frankfurter Allgemeine).
Born in Canada, she began her piano studies with her mother at age four continuing in her native Montréal with Yvonne Hubert. In Paris, she studied with Yvonne Lefébure and in New York at the Juilliard School with Sascha Gorodnitzki, experiencing the best of both French and Russian piano traditions. Her career was launched in 1974, when Arthur Rubinstein became her mentor after her prizewinning performance at his inaugural Master Piano Competition, calling her a “born Chopin interpreter” laying the foundation for her lifelong identification with this composer.
She has performed with the foremost orchestras worldwide under the baton of such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Bernard Haitink, Lorin Maazel, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Roger Norrington, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Klaus Makela. She has won special recognition for a series of important premieres, notably Liszt’s newly discovered Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Chicago Symphony and several contemporary piano concertos. Fialkowska’s discography includes many award-winning discs, including BBC Music Magazine’s 2013 “Instrumental CD of the Year” award as well as a JUNO Award in 2018.
Fialkowska has been named an Officer of the Order of Canada and has been awarded the Governor General’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award in Classical Music and three honourary doctorates.
In October 2021, her autobiography, A Note in Time, was published to universal acclaim by Novum Publishers in London. It is now available worldwide.
Fialkowska currently resides in Bavaria, Germany.
Anne-Marie McDermott
United States / United States*
For over 25 years, Anne-Marie McDermott has played concertos, recitals, and chamber music in hundreds of cities throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, and has become one of the most versatile, respected, and best-reviewed artists of her generation. In addition to several highly successful Artistic Directorships of important festivals and series, McDermott continues her tenure as Music and Artistic Director of the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, which hosts world-renowned artists and orchestras from around the world.
The breadth of McDermott’s repertoire reaches from Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven to Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Scriabin, to works by today’s most influential composers. She has and continues to perform with many leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, League of American Composers, Hong Kong Philharmonic, National Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the symphonies of Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Colorado, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Atlanta, San Diego, New Jersey, Columbus, and Baltimore. She has also toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow Virtuosi.
McDermott was a longtime member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with whom she still collaborates and performs. Highlights with CMS include the complete Prokofiev piano sonatas and a three-concert series of chamber music by Shostakovich. She studied at the Manhattan School of Music and was winner of the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women, the Young Concert Artists auditions, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Anne-Marie McDermott lives in New York City with her husband, Michael.
Awadagin Pratt
United States / United States*
Among his generation of concert artists, pianist Awadagin Pratt is acclaimed for his musical insight and intensely involving performances in recital and with symphony orchestras.
In 1992, Pratt won the Naumburg International Piano Competition (New York) and two years later was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since then, he has played numerous recitals throughout the United States including performances at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (Los Angeles), Orchestra Hall (Chicago), and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. His many orchestral performances include appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra and the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Atlanta, St. Louis, National, and Detroit symphonies, among others. Summer festival engagements include appearances at Ravinia, Blossom, Wolftrap, Caramoor, Aspen, and the Hollywood Bowl.
Also an experienced conductor, Pratt has conducted programs with the Toledo, New Mexico, Vancouver WA, Winston-Salem, and Santa Fe symphonies, the Northwest Sinfonietta, the Concertante di Chicago, and several orchestras in Japan. In summer 2023, he began his tenure as the Music Director of the Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra in Ohio.
In July 2023, Pratt joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as a Professor of Piano. He was previously a Professor of Piano and Artist-in-Residence at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati for 19 years.
In recognition of his achievements in the field of classical music, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Johns Hopkins University as well as honourary doctorates from the Berklee College of Music and Illinois Wesleyan and delivered commencement addresses at those institutions as well as the Peabody Conservatory.
Joyce Yang
South Korea / United States*
Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism, and interpretive sensitivity.
She first came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant at 19 years old, she took home two additional awards: Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the Takàcs Quartet), and Best Performance of a New Work. She received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2010 and her first Grammy nomination in 2017 (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for her recording with violinist Augustin Hadelich.
In the last decade, Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), showcasing her colourful musical personality in solo recitals and collaborations with the world’s top orchestras and chamber musicians through more than 1,000 debuts and re-engagements. She has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, and Sydney Symphony, among others. She has appeared in recital at Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum (New York), Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Symphony Hall (Chicago), and Tonhalle (Zurich).
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at age 4. She moved to the United States to study in the pre-college division of The Juilliard School. After winning the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Student Competition, she performed Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the orchestra at just 12-years-old. She graduated from Juilliard with special honour as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize. Yang is a Steinway Artist.
