Partitura Workshop

Milan native Francesco Granata began playing piano at age five. At 13, he made his debut as soloist with orchestra. He graduated from the Milan Conservatory, obtained the Master Course Diploma at St. Cecilia Academy in Rome under the guidance of Benedetto Lupo, and now studies at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University with Roberto Plano, where he is also assistant instructor. 

Granata has performed with La Fenice Orchestra, the Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra, I Pomeriggi Musicali, Roma sinfonietta, the Dokuz Eylul Symphony Orchestra, OSCOM Orchestra, and UNIMI Orchestra. He has won competitions in Italy, including Premio Crescendo, Premio Società Umanitaria, the Italian selections of Jeunesse Musicale International, and the XXXIV Premio Venezia.

In 2015, Granata recorded Lachner’s transcription of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto for piano and string quintet on DVD for Limenmusic, and in 2018 released his first CD, through the Italian music magazine Suonare news.

Toronto-born Eric Guo started playing piano at four years old, and is pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance at The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, Canada. In 2019, he was named one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s 30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30. 

Guo has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Fort Worth Symphony, Minnesota Symphony, the UK’s Royal Philharmonic, Russia’s Ural Youth Symphony, Italy’s Brescia Master Orchestra, Drummondville Symphony, Ontario Philharmonic, and Orchestra Toronto, and won prizes at international competitions including the PianoTexas Concerto Competition, Minnesota e-Piano, Hastings Concerto Competition, Moscow Chopin Competition and Canadian Chopin Competition. 

He has given recitals at Paderewski Festival in Raleigh and Krakow Piano Summer and participated in many festivals and courses, including Radziejowice, Italy’s Brescia, Italy’s Piano Academy Eppan, PianoTexas, Miami’s Frost Chopin, California’s Music@Menlo, Cincinnati’s Art of the Piano, Philadelphia’s Curtis Summerfest, Seattle Piano Institute, Orford Musique.

Based in Baltimore, Korean-born pianist Sooah Kim graduated at the top of her class from Yonsei College of Music in Seoul, earned a master’s degree from The Juilliard School, and is now completing her Doctorate of Musical Arts at Peabody Conservatory. 

Kim took top prizes in seven national competitions in Korea before the age of 22, including the Mozart Competition, Beethoven Competition, and Eumyoun Competition. She has performed in New York City, Dubai, Bratislava, and her hometown of Seoul, and for private concerts honoring then-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and soprano Hye Kyung Hong, where she performed alongside Met Opera soprano Hera Hyesang Park. She earned laureate recognition at the American International Piano Competition, and fellowships to the Aspen Music Festival and the Gilmore International Piano Festival.

Born into a musical family in Shenzhen, China, Ningjialu Liu started her musical journey at age five, gave her first recital at nine, and began study at the Affiliated Middle School of Scihuan Conservatory of Music at the age of 11. She made her concerto debut playing with the Sichuan Philharmonic Orchestra at age 17. 

She is pursuing a DMA at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (CCM) under the guidance of Mr. Awadagin Pratt, after earning a bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and a master’s at the New England Conservatory of Music. She has won prizes in competitions including Ima Hogg Concerto Competition; U. S. Open Music Competition; Imola International Piano Competition; David D. Dubois Piano Competition; and the Steinway & Sons Youth Competition. 

In 2021, Liu was one of the concerto winners in pianoTexas music festival and performed with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Last year, she won the CCM concerto competition and performed a Florence Price Concerto with the CCM Philharmonic Orchestra. She is also an artist in residence at Macau Youth Symphony Orchestra Music festival.

American pianist Michael Lu began playing piano at age five. As a teen, he studied with Stanislav Ioudenitch and Seth Carlin, and later with Jon Kimura  Parker and Reid Smith. He currently studies with Antonio Pompa-Baldi at the Cleveland Institute of Music. 

Lu was selected by Murray Perahia to participate in his masterclasses on the Beethoven piano sonatas in Munich, Germany in 2022. He has won prizes in numerous competitions, including the First Prize in the Midwest  International Piano Competition in 2014—where the jury included Alexander Toradze—and a gold medal with High Distinction in the Manhattan International Music Competition in 2019.  

Lu serves as the president and artistic director of Classical Music for a Better World, which he founded in 2017, and has performed as concerto soloist with orchestras including the Orchestre de Cannes (France) and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, and with conductors including Sergio Monterisi, Stephen Mulligan, and Gemma New. Michael has performed chamber music with members of the Chicago Symphony and St. Louis Symphony orchestras.

Born in Sichuan, China, Jiana Peng has earned a bachelor and master of music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Antonio Pompa-Baldi and HaeSun Paik, and an artist diploma from the Oberlin Conservatory studying with Stanislav Ioudenitch. She is pursuing her Doctor of  Musical Arts degree at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music under the tutelage of Kevin Kenner. 

Peng made her orchestral debut with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra in Severance Hall at the age of 16. She has since performed with the National Philharmonic Orchestra, Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra, Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, and Philharmonic Orchestra of University of Alicante (Spain) under the batons of Piotr Gajewski, Raphael Jimenez, Carl Topilow, Kimbo  Ishii-Eto, and Uri Segal.  

Peng has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and China, and at festivals including Music Fest Perugia, PianoTexas International Festival, Dubrovnik Summer Music Festival, Duszniki Piano Master Course, Katowice International Piano Masterclass, and Radziejowice Piano Master Course. She won the 2020 International Chopin Piano Competition (Corpus Christi) and took second prize in the 2022 Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition (Washington, D.C). Her debut album “Chopin Preludes and Other Works” was released in 2022.