2024 Ross McKee Piano Competition Final Concert Set For Next Month

 The Ross McKee Foundation has announced the laureates of its 27th Annual Ross McKee Piano Competition: Sora Corro (14), Brian Lin (17), Xinran Shi (14), and Olivia Tu (16). Each laureate receives a prize of $1,500 and participates in the Competition’s final concert on December 15.

The Ross McKee Piano Competition celebrates the talents of young piano virtuosi in the San Francisco Bay Area. Contestants are selected for the semifinal round from recorded performances. This year, ten contestants between the ages of 14 and 17 advanced to the semifinals, where they played challenging programs that included the Competition’s required repertoire, Promptu by local composer Elinor Armer. From this group, the competition jury — noted pianists Elinor Armer, Louise Costigan-Kerns, Frank Levy, Stephen Paulson, and Jeffrey Sykes — chose the four Laureates. Elinor Armer chose Brian Lin’s performance of her work for the Composer’s Choice award; Lin will perform Promptu at the final concert.

On December 15, the 2024 Laureates will present short programs to the general public in the Sol Joseph Recital Hall at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA 94103). Admission to the final performances are free.

The Ross McKee Piano Competition has been a signature project of the Ross McKee Foundation every year since 1997. Launched by the Foundation’s first executive director John Cron, the competition has become one of the premiere piano competitions for young artists in the Bay Area. Over the past 26 years, over seven hundred teenage pianists have applied to enter the competition, and, of them, more than 150 young artists have emerged as Laureates. They have received over $150,000 in prize money as well as performance opportunities and professional-level recordings and videos of their performances. Many have gone on to careers as performers, educators, and faculty members at major music conservatories and universities. Their achievements inspire both younger piano students and the piano-loving audiences the Ross McKee Foundation serves.

The Ross McKee Foundation (www.rossmckee.org), a private nonprofit foundation committed to piano education and performance, has an impressive history of support for the piano culture of the Bay Area. The Foundation celebrates the more than $2.5 million in grants it has awarded to hundreds of pianists and music organizations in the Bay Area Through its grants and projects, the Foundation has endeavored to realize the original mission that Ross McKee set forth: “to enrich our lives with beauty and understanding through the language of music.” Funding local arts presenters and organizations that produce concerts and commission new works for piano, sponsoring music education and piano lessons in schools, awarding scholarships to young pianists and composers, and even directly supporting individual local pianists through the difficult years of the pandemic — these are the ways in which the Ross McKee Foundation continues its efforts to enrich our lives with beauty and understanding.