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Christopher Elton was born in Edinburgh and received most of his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he achieved the unusual distinction of gaining the Academy’s highest performing award – the Dip. RAM – on both piano and cello.

2025 Cliburn Competitor Jonas Aumiller

Praised for her “impeccable technique and facility for crystalline sounds” (American Record Guide), “her natural ease and keen sense for drama” (BBC Music Magazine), “deliciously pearly touch” (Classical-Music) and “crisp, pointed and sensuous playing” (San Francisco Chronicle), Momo Kodama has built up an impressive career with performances with world-renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, NHK Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, Eliahu Inbal, Charles Dutoit, Kent Nagano, Roger Norrington, Lawrence Foster and André Previn. She has appeared at the Vienna Musikverein, Berlin Philharmonie, Berlin Konzerthaus, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ in Amsterdam and the Wigmore Hall in London.

Info for Arts Presenters

Free events celebrating the 2025 Cliburn Competition (May 21–June 7)

2025 Cliburn Competitor Chaeyoung Park

When he was 3 years old, Moscow native Ilya Shmukler’s mother found him jumping on the bed and beautifully singing Robertino Loreti’s “Jamaica;” she immediately recognized his musical talent and started him in lessons. It was important to his non-musician parents that he be raised as a well-rounded person, so his early years were also spent with school, table tennis, and ballroom dancing. But at 10, he says his life changed after applying for and winning his first music competition and attending the subsequent international summer academy: “There I discovered a true musical life, and I fell in love with it, inspiring me to commit my life to music.”

Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott is a consummate artist who balances a versatile career as a soloist and collaborator. She performs over 100 concerts a year in a combination of solo recitals, concerti and chamber music. Her repertoire choices are eclectic, spanning from Bach and Haydn to Prokofiev and Scriabin to Kernis, Hartke, Tower and Wuorinen.

The prizes and awards for the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition

Uladzislau Khandohi was born in Minsk, Belarus, to a family of musicians—dulcimer players. When his parents noticed him picking out melodies on the piano at the age of 7, they took him to music school, where he progressed quickly; he won his first grand prix (at the Mendzelevskaya Open City Competition for young pianists in Mogilev) at age 10, and the first prize of the Sviridov Competition for Young Performers in St. Petersburg a year later.