BREAKING | 2021 Winners Announced at Young Concert Artists International Auditions

Violinist Lun Li, pianists Ying L and Harmony Zhu, and vocal tenor Daniel McGrew have been announced as the first prize winners at the 2021 Young Concert Artists International Auditions

25-year-old violinist Lun Li, 23-year-old pianist Ying Li, 15-year-old pianist Harmony Zhu, and 28-year-old vocal tenor Daniel McGrew have been awarded first prize at the 2021 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, in New York City.

All four winners will join the Young Concert Artists roster — granting access to a minimum of three years of management services, career engagements, publicity, and career guidance, plus coveted recital debuts in New York City and at the Washington D.C. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Throughout their tenure, all four will also benefit from YCA’s connections with the industry’s managers, concert presenters, conductors of major orchestras, and financial supporters, as well as its long-standing reputation for discovering and furthering the careers of extraordinary young artists.

The Final Round of this year’s auditions are available now here on The Violin Channel for playback.

Lun is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Ida Kavafian, and is a current post graduate violin student of Joseph Lin and Catherine Cho at The Juilliard School.

A current student of Jonathan Biss at the Curtis Institute of Music, Ying is a former top prize winner at the Sarasota National Competition, Brevard Music Festival Competition, Liszt International Competition for Young Pianists, and the "A Step Towards Mastery" International Competition for Young Pianists.

A student at The Juilliard School Pre-College, Harmony already has performed with major orchestras across the world including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She is a Lang Lang Scholar and has worked with leading conductors including Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, Yale University, and the University of Michigan, Daniel was recently a featured performer at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Marlboro School of Music.

Founded in 1961 by Susan Wadsworth, The Young Concert Artists International Auditions differ from a competition, as there are no rankings, and any number of winners can be selected — with each candidate competing against a standard of excellence, not each other.

The jury for the final round comprised: soprano Amy Burton, flutist Brandon Patrick George, conductors Miguel Harth-Bedoya and David Alan Miller, vocal coach Kayo Iwama, YCA President Daniel Kellogg, violinist Jennifer Koh, pianists Cecile Licad and Anne-Marie McDermott, Philadelphia Orchestra Vice President of Artistic Planning Jeremy Rothman, violist Marcus Thompson, YCA Founder Susan Wadsworth, and cellist Paul Watkins.

Previous YCA recipients include Pinchas Zukerman, Ida Kavafian, Anne Akiko Meyers, Emanuel Ax, and Murray Perahia — and VC Artists Paul Huang, Ray Chen, Stephen Warts, Zlatomir Fung, Xavier Foley, SooBeen Lee, and Jonathan Swensen.

Each of this year's first prize recipients performs at tomorrow evening's Winners Concert at 7:00 PM (ET) at Gilder Lehrman Hall, at New York City's Morgan Library & Museum - which will also be streamed LIVE here on The Violin Channel.