Pianist, composer, and creative force Hyung-ki Joo is redefining the concert experience, playfully blending storytelling with musical innovation to engage audiences beyond traditional classical formats. On stage, he enraptures audiences with his jovial and contagious stage presence as well as his energetic, brilliantly virtuosic performance. He takes on various musical roles, crafting special projects that highlight him as pianist, conductor, communicator, composer, and artistic director. As a soloist, he has performed with renowned orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, and the Wiener Symphoniker. In recent seasons, Hyung-ki Joo has appeared with orchestras such as the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Romanian Radio Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony, Zagreb Philharmonic.
Highlights have included his role as curator and director for the opening of the 2023 Wiener Festwochen, play/conducting the Hong Kong Sinfonietta in Haydn Seek, and collaborations with Tarmo Peltokoski and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen as well as the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. Together with Tarmo Peltokoski, Hyung-ki Joo also performed Lutosławski’s Paganini Variations as a piano duo. In the summer of 2025, he took part in the opening concerts for the new Busan Concert Hall in Korea and appeared at the Salzburg Festival alongside celebrated soprano Asmik Grigorian, where they presented their newly created show A Diva Is Born which was premiered at the Vienna State Opera a season earlier.
At the start of the 2025/26 season, Hyung-ki Joo and Asmik Grigorian continued their collaboration with a Lied recital at La Scala in Milan and have continued to perform A Diva is Born in Riga, Vilnius, and a re-invitation to the Vienna State Opera. Solo recitals will also take him to Switzerland, Norway, and Singapore. To close the season, he will premiere his new programme Piano vs. Orchestra, which explores the history of the piano concerto in collaboration with the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn under Dirk Kaftan.
His affinity for song repertoire has already led to collaborations with singers such as Sunhae Im, Dame Felicity Lott, Valentina Nafornița, Julian Prégardien, and Pretty Yende. Similarly, his love for chamber music has shaped Hyung-ki Joo’s musical career, leading to collaborations with artists including Renaud Capuçon, Martin Fröst, Janine Jansen, Mischa Maisky, Julian Rachlin, the Belcea Quartet, as well as members of the Alban Berg Quartet and the Quatuor Ébène. Beyond performing as a pianist and chamber musician, Hyung-ki Joo has collaborated with many artists outside the classical mainstream, such as jazz pianist Stefano Bollani, actor John Malkovich, and singer-songwriter Billy Joel, whose final studio album of solo piano pieces, Fantasies and Delusions, was arranged and recorded by Joo for Sony Classical. He has also appeared in several films, including Pianomania, And So It Goes, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Classical Music.
With his duo Igudesman & Joo, they ignited the internet with their inventive and hilarious videos combining classical music, comedy, and pop culture, and through their performances with major orchestras and iconic classical musicians, they not only brought laughter into concert halls worldwide, but also helped open the door to more adventurous and imaginative approaches to classical programming. At the end of 2025, the duo bid farewell to their fans worldwide with a major tour. Committed to nurturing young talent, he loves to work regularly with students, youth orchestras, and ensembles such as the Norwegian National Youth Orchestra, the Luxembourg Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Youth Orchestra of Tonhalle Düsseldorf. A passionate communicator, Hyung-ki Joo works to inspire the next generation of musicians. In his Beyond the Practice Room workshops, he places focus on the joy of making music and encourages participants to explore fresh directions beyond “conventional” performance. He is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Manhattan School of Music, serves as a mentor at the Yehudi Menuhin School and is currently the Artistic Director of the Menuhin Competition for young violinists.
As a composer, Hyung-ki Joo’s works have been performed by orchestras, ensembles, and soloists such as the New York Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, Komische Oper Berlin Ensemble, Oslo Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Meta4, Emanuel Ax, Tine Thing Helseth, Daniel Hope, and Yuja Wang, and recorded by artists such as Shani Diluka and the Ahn Piano Trio. Last year, two albums featuring his music were released: the Miró Quartet’s Hearth (Pentatone) and Sun Hee You’s Circle (Piano Classics). His music is published by Universal Edition and Modern Works. Ever inventive, Hyung-ki Joo continues to bridge boundaries between art forms, transforming the way audiences experience classical music.
He has appeared at major international venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Salzburg Festival, Moscow’s Great Hall at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Pasadena Ambassador Auditorium, Herrenhausen Gardens, National Hall in Taipei, Sejong Hall, and Zipper Hall at the Colburn School. His performances in South Korea at the Busan Cultural Center and Hoam Art Hall have also been met with great acclaim.
Mr. Choi is the First Prize ($50,000) and People’s Choice Award ($10,000) winner of the inaugural 2007 José Iturbi International Music Competition. He is a laureate of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, having received diplomas in both 1998 and 2002, and is a top prizewinner of numerous other international competitions.
A graduate of The Juilliard School (BM, MM), where he studied with Oxana Yablonskaya, Mr. Choi also earned the prestigious Soloklassen Diploma from the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover under Vladimir Krainev.
In addition to his performing career, he is deeply committed to education. His students have won top prizes in major national and international competitions—including the e-Piano Junior, Gina Bachauer Junior, National Chopin Competition, Arthur Fraser Competition, MTNA, and MTAC—and have gone on to study at leading conservatories such as Juilliard, New England Conservatory, and Manhattan School of Music.
In 2023, Mr. Choi founded the Salit Conservatory of Music in Burbank, California, expanding his mission to inspire and guide pianists to “listen between the notes.”
With a noted career that spans more than three decades, Robert’s collaborations with high-profile artists and chamber ensembles across the globe has solidified his standing as an invaluable partner and resource to musicians near and far.
From coast to coast and throughout Asia and Europe, in concert and on tour, Robert regularly performs at such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington’s Kennedy Center, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Amsterdam’s Het Concertgebouw. He has collaborated with many of this generation’s most renowned musicians, including Joshua Bell, Augustin Hadelich, Sarah Chang, Hilary Hahn, Ida Kavafian, Roberto Diaz, Zuill Bailey, Sara Sant’Ambrogio, Miro String Quartet, and members of the Tokyo and Juilliard String Quartets. Of significance is Robert’s frequent partnership with legendary late violinist Aaron Rosand, as well as his 30-year collaboration with renowned violinist Elmar Oliveira.
Robert currently serves as Professor and Head of Collaborative Piano at the University of California Santa Barbara, where he was Chair of the Music Department from 2019-2022. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Bellosguardo International Piano Competition, with the inaugural competition to take place in Santa Barbara, CA in 2028.
Robert Koenig is an official Yamaha Artist.
Collaborations have included cellist Matt Haimovitz, ETHEL, and members of both the Juilliard String Quartet and the San Francisco Symphony. Raja’s major teachers have included Seymour Lipkin, Jerome Lowenthal, Lev Vlassenko, and Byron Janis. Mr. Rahman has performed at Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Kneisel Hall, and other notable festivals.
Raja has enjoyed the lighter side of entertainment as one half of “Jarrett & Raja,” a pianist / magician duo that has toured worldwide and has been featured on TV shows such as America’s Got Talent, Shark Tank, and Masters of Illusion. In 2018, Raja made his Moscow Conservatory concert debut. During the pandemic, Raja recorded for virtual projects with colleagues such as Music at the Mission in San Francisco and the Met Museum’s Balcony Bar series.
Mr. Rahman’s teaching career began at The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program. He also taught for two years at Indiana University while pursuing his DMA. Currently, Raja serves as President of Nevada School of the Arts (NSA), Las Vegas’ preeminent performing arts conservatory where he guides the training of the next generation of gifted young artists and musicians. Raja is leading the effort to build a new college accredited conservatory building in Las Vegas’ cultural epicenter, Symphony Park. Mr. Rahman is a Steinway Artist.
“A VIRTUOSO CONCERT PIANIST” – SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY UK
“A POWERHOUSE PIANIST…” – THE SUNDAY TIMES
“A FIRST-CLASS MUSICIAN” – SIR GEORG SOLTI
RajaRahman.com
Japan’s InTune magazine puts it simply. “When it comes to clarity, flawless tempo selection, phrasing and precise control of timbre, Buechner has no superior.” In her twenties, Ms. Buechner was the winner of a bouquet of prizes at the world’s première piano competitions — Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Leeds, Salzburg, Sydney and Vienna. She won the Gold Medal at the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, and was a Bronze Medalist of the 1986 Tschaikowsky International Piano Competition in Moscow.
Her breathtaking range of repertoire includes 125 piano concertos ranging from A (Albeníz) to Z (Zimbalist), which she has performed internationally with the world’s great orchestras. Her numerous recordings have received prominent critical appraisal, and she is one of the only prominent concert pianists to perform and record original scores for silent motion pictures.
The broad sweep of Ms. Buechner’s artistry is presented in her autobiographical stage show “Of Pigs and Pianos,” which she wrote, produced and starred in to acclaim from the New York Times and other media in 2022. She continues to appear in the show yearly, with its première at the International Gilmore Festival in 2026.
Ms. Buechner is Piano Chair of the Greenwich House Music School in New York City, Professor of Piano at Temple University in Philadelphia, and an Adjunct Professor at New York University. As the most prominent transgender musician of her generation, Sara Davis Buechner appears often as a spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ community. She has been a dedicated Yamaha Artist for nearly 40 years.
He has created hundreds of video lessons and interviews with dozens of world class pianists the likes of Yuja Wang, Garrick Ohlsson, and Marc-André Hamelin for the online music education platform Tonebase. Serving as head of Tonebase Piano platform for four years, he also presented live workshops and online intensives in piano literature and musicianship skills for amateur pianists around the world, and received a YouTube Silver Creator Award for the Tonebase Piano YouTube channel.
As a concert artist, Laude has given recitals across three continents and performed in Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. He has appeared with the New Amsterdam Symphony, Austin Symphony, and Austin Civic Orchestras, and has been heard in live broadcasts on WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago), and WWFM. In recent seasons, Laude has given all-Beethoven and all-Chopin recitals and is currently engaged to perform Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the Southern Tier Symphony.
Laude holds degrees in piano performance from Rice University and the Juilliard School, and his major teachers were Jerome Lowenthal, Matti Raekallio, Robert Roux, and Eric Hicks. At Juilliard he was the assistant to David Dubal, with whom he co-hosted a 3-part series on Glenn Gould for WWFM and co-founded the New York concert talks series Piano Evenings.
In his spare time, he enjoys beat-boxing with his wife Sasha, watching the NBA, and practicing slowly.
First and foremost, Siskind is an accomplished jazz pianist and composer. A top finisher in national and international jazz piano competitions, Siskind is a two-time laureate of the American Pianists Association and the winner of the Nottingham International Jazz Piano Competition. As the leader of “The Housewarming Project,” Siskind not only created “a shining example of chamber jazz” (Downbeat) that received Chamber Music America’s $30,000 New Jazz Works grant, but he reimagined the concert experience by creating more than 150 in-home concerts in more than 25 states. The Housewarming Project’s albums, including 2022’s two-CD set Songs of Rebirth have been named among the “Best of the Year” by Downbeat magazine, The Ottawa Citizen, and Jazz History Online, among others. Siskind’s arrangements for frequent collaborators soprano Julia Bullock and pianist Lara Downes have been praised by NPR and the New York Times, who named his re-writing of “One by One” for Bullock as one of the “Best Classical Music Tracks of 2022.” Siskind has also written arrangements for Miami’s New World Symphony (for soprano Louise Toppin) and Cleveland’s “No Exit New Music (for soprano Lauren Pearl).
A sought-after educator, Siskind has published more than 20 instructional books, including Playing Solo Jazz Piano, with an introduction by Fred Hersch, and the ground-breaking Jazz Piano Fundamentals series. Besides Siskind’s own YouTube channel, which boasts over 9,000 subscribers, Siskind is frequently seen teaching on digital platforms like Tonebase, Open Studio, and Piano with Jonny, as well as presenting webinars and in-person lectures for the Frances Clark Institute, the Music Teachers National Association, and the Imagine Solutions Conference. Siskind has been a featured guest for the state conferences of music teachers associations in New York, Florida, Arizona, and California, at the University of Georgia Piano Pedagogy Symposium, the University of Alabama Keyboard Festival, and the Louisiana International Piano Series, and others. As the chair of the National Conference for Keyboard Pedagogy’s “Creativity Track,” Siskind helps to guide education and pedagogy surrounding improvisation and composition. Siskind spreads peace through music in places like Lebanon, Tunisia, and Thailand with the non-profit organization, Jazz Education Abroad.
Siskind has had the opportunity to perform with musical luminaries like revered trumpeter Arturo Sandoval (at Disney Hall in Los Angeles), drummer Matt Wilson and bassist Jay Anderson (in a trio setting at Mezzrow jazz club in New York), Grammy-winning classical pianist Angelin Chang (who duetted with Siskind on his Perpetual Motion Etudes at Carnegie Hall), legendary vocalist Kurt Elling (who recorded on Siskind’s album Housewarming), and drummer Ted Poor (who plays on Siskind’s album Simple Songs (for When the World Seems Strange) and has served as musical director for comedians Lea DeLaria (Orange is the New Black) and Sandra Bernhard (The King of Comedy). A student of Scott McBride Smith, Tony Caramia, Harold Danko, Sophia Rosoff, and Fred Hersch, Siskind holds degrees in both Jazz Performance and Music Theory from the Eastman School of Music as well as a Masters in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. He is a tenured professor at Southern California’s Fullerton College and a proud Yamaha Artist.
His playing has been heard on CBC/Radio-Canada, 98.7 WVMO, New Classical 96.3FM, WWFM, WQXR, Belarusian First Radio, and Madison Freethought Radio/Television. His recordings include Chopin and Debussy (AFA, 2018), Brahms in Solitude (2022); Chopin’s Diary: The Mazurkas (Lexicon Classics, 2023), and a fourth album of the complete works of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (2024). Brahms in Solitude received attention in LaScena Musicale and Piano Professional (EPTA) as a five-star album, “His deft voicing and clarity speak to his understanding of the works of Brahms’s idol, J.S. Bach. His soft sound is at once full-bodied and resonant, and unthinkably quiet. Dunn’s precision, sense of musical direction, and knowledge of the piano’s every colour are on display here.”
Mr. Dunn won First Prize and Concerto Award at the 7th International Chopin Competition of Lithuania (Vilnius 2018), leading to concerts in Europe and abroad, and was a finalist/prizewinner in the 1st Jan Hofmann International Competition (Kraków 2019). He won prizes in Piano and Chamber Music at the Rome, Verona Zinetti, and Vitti International Competitions, and First Prize in McGill Piano Concerto Competition. He has performed worldwide as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with orchestras, and his career has included invitations to perform in Poland, Hungary, Belarus, Slovakia, Germany, Spain, Portugal, France, Malta,The Czech Republic, England, United States, Canada, China, and Australia. He enjoys playing solo recitals, a capacity in which he performs regularly.
A favorite artist in Europe, Yulianna has recurring concert engagements at the Warsaw Philharmonic, Rudolfinum in Prague, Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus, and Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. She recently performed recital debuts at the Salzburg and Gstaad festivals, and at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.
Highlights of Yulianna’s 2025-26 season include a recital tour to Korea and China; the “Chopin and his Europe Festival” in Warsaw; recital debuts at Musikverein Vienna, Cologne Philharmonic Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, La Jolla Music Society, Philip Lorenz International Keyboard Concerts, Houston’s DACAMERA series, Festival de Tannay, in Switzerland, Società del Quartetto di Milano, and Music Center De Bijloke, in Belgium. She also returns to Círculo de Bellas Artes, in Madrid, for a full performance of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, and to the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival, in Prague, for a solo recital of excerpts from Op. 87 at the Rudolfinum.
Orchestral performances, as soloist, include the Seattle Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, WDR Cologne Radio Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Orchestre Consuelo at Festival La Chaise-Dieu; and the Franz Schubert Filharmonia. Her recent appearance at the Gewandhaus Shostakovich Festival is followed this season with a European tour with Andris Nelsons and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Upcoming chamber music performances include a tour with the Belcea Quartet and concerts in Vienna, Hamburg, Berlin, and Madrid.
Yulianna’s 2024-25 season included a Carnegie Hall re-engagement, after her sold-out recital debut in 2023; she returned with a program of Chopin and Liszt, which she also played in Spain, Germany, the U.S., France, Austria and Italy. She also performed with the New York Philharmonic at Bravo! Vail Music Festival; made her Celebrity Series of Boston debut; gave a recital at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival; and several concerts at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival.
In partnership with the Boston Symphony, the Gewandhaus Orchestra created a Festival marking the 50thanniversary of the death of Shostakovich, which featured Yulianna in performances of the entire Op. 87 in spring 2025. Besides the Gewandhaus, she performed the cycle at Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin; Palau de la Música in Barcelona; Saitama Arts Center, in Tokyo; Festival de Lanaudière, in Quebec; National Centre for the Performing Arts, in Beijing; Ostrava, in the Czech Republic; and Seon, in Switzerland, among others. She made her debut with the Chicago Symphony in the 2023-24 season.
Yulianna recently released three albums on PENTATONE: Resilience (2023); Chopin: Voyage (2024); and a complete recording of Shostakovich’s Op. 87 (2025). Her recordings of the Chopin concertos with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Frans Brüggen (2013); three solo albums featuring works by Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Prokofiev (2014, 2016, 2017); collaboration with Gidon Kremer in Weinberg’s chamber music (2017 and 2019); and Deutsche Grammophon solo recording (2015) are a formidable record of her art.
In 2025 Yulianna launched the online project #AvdeevaShostakovichProject, discussing and playing each of the 24 Preludes and Fugues. The project accompanied #YuliannasMusicalDialogues, an open space for her followers to share their passion for music. Piano aficionados also enjoyed Yulianna’s online educational project #AvdeevaBachProject, which she offered throughout the Covid-19 lockdown, gaining over half a million views.
Kageyama specializes in teaching performing artists how to utilize sports psychology principles to more consistently demonstrate their full abilities under pressure. He has conducted workshops at institutions including Northwestern University, New England Conservatory, Peabody, Eastman, and the U.S. Armed Forces School of Music. He has taught at programs such as the Starling-DeLay Symposium, the Perlman Music Program, and the National Orchestral Institute, and for organizations like the Music Teachers’ National Association and the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
Kageyama has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Musical America, Strings Magazine, Strad, and Lifehacker. He maintains a private coaching practice and writes a performance psychology blog, The Bulletproof Musician, which has more than 100,000 monthly readers.