Search

Sa Chen Jury Chair for the 2027 Cliburn International Competition for Young Pianists

Artistic Partners for the 2027 Cliburn International Competition for Young Pianists: Dallas Symphony Orchestra, SMU Meadows School for the Arts, and conductor, Maurice Cohn

It was an honor having you join us for the 2024 Cliburn Classic Golf and Pickleball Tournaments. We are grateful for our donors, players, spectators, and especially for our honorary chairmen, Elisabeth and Brent Hyder, and our tournament chairmen, Cameron and Huck Newberry and Megan and Perry Porterfield. Thank you for making the 2024 Cliburn Classic a Monday to remember!

The Cliburn Gala is one of Fort Worth's best parties. This annual black-tie affair features music, dinner, and dancing to raise money for the Cliburn's programs.

When she was 6, Elizaveta Kliuchereva—who was born in Moscow into a family of visual artists—was walking in the corridors of her art school and found a very old piano standing in the corner. She says: “From the moment I saw the piano and opened the keyboard, I realized that it is going to be my life, and I would not be able to live without music.”

Yangrui Cai began his piano studies at age 4, though none of his family had any music- or art-related background. When he was 15, a first-place finish in the national auditions earned him a spot in China’s Xinghai Conservatory of Music Middle School. Upon his graduation with distinction in July 2019, the Hunan native was admitted to several prestigious conservatories in the United States with full scholarships. He is currently a third-year undergraduate student at Oberlin Conservatory, under the tutelage of 2001 Cliburn Gold Medalist Stanislav Ioudenitch.

After Vitaly Starikov completed his studies at the Ural Special Music School in his native Yekaterinburg, his “dream came true” when he began studying with Vera Gornostayeva, one of the world’s most venerated teachers, at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. At that time, her student, Vadym Kholodenko, had just won the 2013 Cliburn Competition, which “greatly inspired” Vitaly: “and it was then that the thought was born to someday participate in this competition.”

Tianxu An, from Baoding, near Beijing, is a sought-after young artist, both at home in China and around the world. In June 2019, Tianxu drew international attention when he won fourth prize and a special prize for “courage and restraint” in the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition—the highest award for a Chinese pianist at that contest in 17 years. A month later, he made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Center.

Born in Qinhuangdao, Xiaolu Zang was 4 years old when an electric keyboard caught his attention. He eventually attended the Beijing Central Music Conservatory Middle School for seven years under Professor Ye Lin and won first prizes in several major Chinese competitions. It was during that time, at the age of 15, that he recalls a singular day when he determined himself to become a professional musician. That commitment took him to Germany in 2017, where he studies with Arie Vardi at Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.

Equal parts passion, grit, and musical ecstasy, Sybarite5 is an intoxicating cocktail of genre-breaking artistry expressed through virtuosity. See them at Cliburn Sessions at Tannahill's Music Hall.