Misha Galant
2020 GILMORE YOUNG ARTIST Misha Galant
Misha Galant began piano lessons at the age of six and continued to study for 12 years with his mother, Olya Katsman. Throughout high school, he also received guidance and coaching from Sharon Mann and Yoshikazu Nagai of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is currently a senior at Columbia University, studying piano through the Columbia-Juilliard Program while also pursuing degrees in Data Science and Russian Literature. He studies with Joseph Kalichstein at The Juilliard School and with Yu-Jane Yang at Weber State University in Ogden, UT.
Mr. Galant gave his first full solo recital at age 12 and made his orchestral debut at age 13 with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, with which he performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. He has since performed with orchestras across the U.S., including the Fort Worth Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, and the California Youth Symphony, with which he subsequently toured Austria and Italy performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. He has also won numerous awards at piano competitions, including multiple prizes in 2015 at the first Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and at the Eastman Young Artists International Competition, the latter resulting in a four-year, full-tuition scholarship offer to attend the Eastman School of Music. He is a two-time winner of the Music Teachers’ Association of California concerto competition and was inducted into the organization’s selective Young Artist Guild, through which he performs frequently as a recitalist around California.
Additionally, Mr. Galant is an active chamber musician, and he also performs benefit concerts for retirement communities as a member of the Music Students’ Service League, an outreach program in Contra Costa County, CA. Beyond his musical and academic endeavors, he enjoys hiking and traveling and is a member of the Columbia University swim team, a D1 team that trains twenty hours per week.