Welcome to the new Sacramento State Piano Festival Webpage! Please watch for updates. Contact: Email Richard Cionco, Director

2013 Sacramento State Piano Festival: Saturday, February 23–Monday, February 25
Capistrano Recital Hall and Capistrano 151 at Sacramento State.

• The Valencia Young Pianist Competition - Generously sponsored annually by Edward McGrath, the preliminary round of this competition will be held on Saturday, February 23 (not open to the public). Open to young artists ages 15-22, the competition will award three prizes of $200, $300, and $500. A maximum of six finalists will be chosen to perform in the Final Round on Monday, Feb. 25, 2013 at 7:30pm, in front of an audience at Capistrano Music Recital Hall. This recital is free and open to the public. Download the application and information sheet (pdf).

• Guest Artist Performance - Ning An will be performing on Saturday, February 23 at 7:30pm. Mr. An was the First Prize Winner of the 2003 William Kapell Piano Competition. He made his concerto debut at the age of sixteen, performing the Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra in February of 1993. He has since appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Belgian National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Flemish Radio Symphony, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. Mr. An’s recent Carnegie Hall debut, an all-Chopin program presented by the Chopin Foundation of the United States in Weill Recital Hall, was praised in the New York Concert Review for “the almost sculpted clarity of his playing, and his ability to maintain balance and tension in large-scale dramatic forms...". He received his BM and MM from the New England Conservatory of Music, and is currently an Artist in Residence at Lee University, Tennessee. His principal teachers were Russell Sherman and Olga Radosalvjevich. Admission: $15 students/seniors and $20 general.

• Master Classes and Discussions will be held on Sunday, Feb. 24th from 12:00pm to 6:00pm (CPS 151). Given by Sacramento State's piano faculty, these are free and open to the public. The master classes will feature performances by the Valencia Competition finalists.

• 12:00pm – 1:30pm - Professor Lorna Peters Piano Master Class
• 2:00pm – 3:30pm - Professor Kirsten Smith Discussion: "Practicing: The Intersection of Focus and Effort"
• 4:00pm – 5:30pm - Professor Richard Cionco Piano Master Class
  
  

• Other Piano Series Recitals - For more on the Piano Series Recitals for the 2012-2013 season, visit the Piano Series page.