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Pianist Szymon Nehring wins Harvard Musical Association's Foote Award

Szymon Nehring

Pianist and current School of Music artist diploma candidate Szymon Nehring has won the Harvard Musical Association's 2018 Arthur W. Foote Award, which is presented "to instrumentalists of the highest musical caliber of university or conservatory level who are about to launch professional careers," according to language on the association's website. Nehring will perform at a private event for association members and their guests on Feb. 2 in Boston.

Nehring "was clearly the consensus" winner among jury members this year, John Anthony Schemmer, the chairman and vice president of the HMA, said. "He's still very young, but he has already a very decided personality of his own and he has the ability to draw in and engage the audience."

Violinist and current YSM artist diploma candidate Sirena Huang and organist David Simon '17MM, who is pursuing his doctorate at the School of Music (and studying at the Institute of Sacred Music), also inspired members of the Foote Award jury. They "made very favorable and distinguished impressions on us," Schemmer said.

Previous Foote Award winners from YSM include organist Paul Jacobs '02MM '03AD (2003) and pianists Ryo Yanagitani '04MM '05AD '08MMA and Henry Kramer '13AD '15MMA (2005 and 2014, respectively). Schemmer, who graduated from Yale College in 1968 with a degree in music theory and composition, said the School of Music's "profile has been rising for several decades," and that YSM's students are "absolutely superb." Nehring is the latest to reflect that assessment. Upon reviewing Nehring's recorded performances, one jury member said "he had the audience engaged before he began playing," according to Schemmer, who, in turn, said that Nehring "is prepared with these pieces in the most extraordinary way."

Nehring, who studies at the School of Music with Boris Berman, arrived at Yale in fall 2017 having won the prestigious Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, Israel, in May. In October, Nehring was named the Personality of the Year as part of the 2017 Polish Music Coryphaeus Awards and was honored that month alongside other award recipients in Warsaw, Poland. Before enrolling at YSM, he studied with Stefan Wojtas at the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The Harvard Musical Association was founded by Harvard alumni in 1837 but is not affiliated with that university.

SZYMON NEHRING