NYIPC Winner Pianist Kate Liu Performs US Premiere by Hans Werner Henze at SubCulture Tonight

The accomplished young pianist Kate Liu, First-Prize Winner of The Stecher and Horowitz Foundation's 2010 New York International Piano Competition (NYIPC) will be heard in recital this evening, March 6th at 7:30 p.m. at SubCulture, 45 Bleecker Street, Downstairs, New York, NY as part of the Stecher and Horowitz Foundation's three-concert SubCulture series featuring standout participants of the New York International Piano Competition (NYIPC). The program includes works by Haydn, Leon Kirchner, Chopin, and a US premiere of a piano work by the prolific and politically controversial Hans Werner Henze, called, Scorribanda Pianistica.

Tickets are $25 and can be purchased by visiting www.subculturenewyork.com or by calling TicketFly at 877-987-6487.

Kate Liu, pianist, born in 1994 became at the age of sixteen the First Prize-Winner at the 2010 Fifth New York International Piano Competition, a biennial event presented under the auspices of The Stecher and Horowitz Foundation. She was also the Prize-Winner for Best Performance of the Required Contemporary Work by Avner Dorman. Kate was a scholarship recipient and student of the Music Institute of Chicago's Academy program for gifted pre-college musicians, where she studied privately with artist faculty members Alan Chow and Emilio Del Rosario.

Born in Singapore, Kate Liu began playing the piano when she was four years old, and moved to the United States with her family when she was eight years of age. She won the Illinois Junior Music Teachers National Association Competition in 2007 and 2008 and both the Junior and Senior Divisions of the Chicago Steinway Competition in 2006 and 2007 respectively, and performed on the Young Steinway Concert Series in 2007. In 2008, Kate won Second Prize in the International Institute for Young Musicians Competition, and received honors in the regionals of the Junior MTNA Competition.

In September, 2008, Kate performed a live recital on WFMT radio's Introductions program. She was also featured on WTTW Chicago's Tonight show. Following an audition held by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Kate was chosen to perform with the internationally renowned pianist Lang Lang and also to participate in his masterclass. She played Schubert's Fantasy in F minor, one-piano, four hands with Lang Lang in two concerts at the Symphony Center in Chicago in November, 2008.

In March of 2009, she traveled with the Music Institute of Chicago to the east coast where she performed at Weill Hall, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In October of 2009, she won the Junior Division of the Louisiana International Piano Competition. In July, 2010 she performed Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Cleveland Orchestra as a finalist of the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, receiving Third Prize.

Kate Liu has performed with the Skokie Symphony Orchestra in Illinois, and in New York at Temple Emanu-El, the Ossining Public Library, The Park Avenue Christian Church and the Bohemian Club. Kate is the recipient of a scholarship from the Chopin Foundation of the United States and has also been featured on NPR's From the Top.

During the 2011 season, Kate Liu's recital at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. "confirmed a burgeoning talent and a musical poise well beyond her years. She is already a pianist worth leaving home to hear" (The Washington Post).

Kate Liu entered Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in the fall of 2012 to begin her undergraduate studies with Robert McDonald.

Melvin Stecher and Norman Horowitz, Executive Directors of the Stecher and Horowitz Foundation, have devoted a lifetime to the musical education of young people. Internationally recognized as one of the most distinguished duo-piano teams of their generation, Stecher and Horowitz are equally renowned for their multi-faceted activities as performers, teachers, composers, and educational consultants - activities that have earned them a unique position in the world of music. Having been co-directors of the Stecher and Horowitz School of the Arts for 39 years, (1960-1999) it was apparent to both principals that the most important years for developing interested young musicians were the pre-teen years and into the early twenties, a good decade of concentrated and formative development. The New York Piano Competition was originally founded on this premise.