YSM pianists share top prize in Shanghai International Piano Competition
At the sixth Shanghai International Piano Competition earlier this month, Henry Kramer ’13AD and Wenbin Jin ’09CERT were jointly awarded the second prize. The first prize was not awarded.
Both also won additional prizes: Jin for Best Performance of the Chinese Commissioned Work and Best Chinese Contestant, and Kramer for Best Performance of Lieder.
Wenbin Jin attended the middle school attached to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under Professor Zhang Lin. At the age of 18 he entered the Yale School of Music to study with Boris Berman and received the Certificate of Performance in 2009. Later that year, he began studying with Hung-Kuan Chen at the New England Conservatory; Chen also teaches at the Yale School of Music. Jin has performed recitals in the United States, Holland, Italy, Canada, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, and Taiwan. In 2004 Wenbin performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra. He has been an official accompanist at the Great Mountains Music Festival in Korea for the last three years.Wenbin Jin has worked closely with musicians such as Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Ani Kavafian, David Shifrin, and Alfred Brendel. He was a semifinalist in the 2011 Clara Haskil Competition and has received prizes in the China National Piano Competition, among others.
Henry Kramer was a top prizewinner in the 2010 National Chopin Competition and the 2011 International Concours Montreal. In recent seasons, he has performed a solo recital at The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, a concerto engagement with The Portland Symphony, and with fellow Yale pianists in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Henry has appeared as a soloist with the Orchestre Metropolitan du Montreal, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music Orchestra, as well as in recitals across the US and internationally. He has been featured on National Public Radio and WQXR (New York City). In addition to his solo performances, Henry is active as a chamber musician. He has been featured in performances at Lincoln Center and has participated in the Music Academy of the West, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. Henry holds a MM and BM from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Robert McDonald and Julian Martin. He currently studies with Boris Berman at the Yale School of Music.
