Esther

Artist Bio

Esther Park, piano

Esther Park '12AD won the second prize in the Houston Symphony's Ima Hogg Young Artists Competition, held June 24 at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

In addition to receiving the $2,500 Houston Symphony League Jerry Priest Award, Park will play Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Houston Symphony. Her performance will take place at Miller Theatre on June 25.

Named to honor the memory of Miss Ima Hogg, a co-founder of the Houston Symphony, this prestigious Competition is open to young musicians between the ages of 16 and 29 who play standard orchestral instruments or piano. Through the support of the Houston Symphony League, the Competition provides performance opportunities for aspiring musicians.

The semifinal round, in which ten semifinalists each performed two concertos with piano accompaniment, took place on Thursday, June 2 in Stude Concert Hall at Rice University. At the semifinals, four finalists were selected to perform one concerto with the Houston Symphony at the Finals Concert on Saturday, June 4.

Pianist Esther Park has performed as a soloist with orchestras and in recitals across the United States as well as Asia and major European cities. She has appeared as soloist with many orchestras such as the Corpus Christi Symphony, Filharmonia Pomorska (Poland), Orchestra Filarmonica (Romania), Shanghai Philharmonic, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra at Aspen, Shreveport Symphony, the Juilliard Symphony, and the New Jersey Symphony.

Ms. Park has been heard in New York on WQXR Radio station as the winner of the 52nd Kosciusko International Competition and the Gina Bachauer Competition. She is the winner of the 2009 Prix Amadeo and the 2009 Chopin Gesellschaft Klavierwettbewerb, as well as the winner of the 2004 Gina Bachauer Piano Competition at the Juilliard School, the Juilliard Concerto Competition, and the 52nd Kosciusko International Piano Competition. Ms. Park also received top prizes at the Third San Marino International Piano Competition, the Third China Shanghai International Piano Competition, the Sixth Paderewski International Piano Competition, the National Chopin Competition (USA), Hilton Head International Competition, and the Fourteenth New Orleans International Piano Competition. She is the recipient of President Clinton's Prodigy Award.

Born in Pusan, Korea in 1984, Ms. Park began to play in public soon after her first piano lessons at the age of four. She moved to the United States in 1995, after being accepted to the Juilliard School's Pre-College division. Ms. Park has since received her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School, studying with Yoheved Kaplinsky. Ms. Park also studied at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater (Hannover) under the tutelage of Bernd Goetzke, and is currently an Artist Diploma candidate at the Yale School of Music under the guidance of Boris Berman.