David Dubal's Three Guest Pianists

Canadian pianist, Irene Florence Wong, 25,began her musical studies at the age of three and a half, and received a Performance Diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto at the age of fifteen. Over the years, she has completed two workshop diplomas from the Sommerakademie Internationale of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, as well as Career-Development Music & Sound Residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts.  A former student of James Anagnoson (Glenn Gould School) and Jane Coop (University of British Columbia), Ms. Wong is currently completing a Masters degree with Seymour Lipkin (Juilliard School of Music).   Ms. Wong has won numerous awards and trophies, including the Yamaha Canada Award for the Grand Prize in the 1997 Canadian Music Competitions, first prize in the 1999 Canadian Chopin Piano Competition, the Mississauga Arts Council’s Year 2000 Emerging Music Talent Award, and the 2006 President's Trophy at the Toronto Kiwanis Festival. 

A native of Long Island, Michael Brown attends the Juilliard School as a double major in piano and composition where he studies with Jerome Lowenthal and Samuel Adler.  Mr. Brown is the winner of both the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at the Juilliard School and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship competitions. He has also won top prizes in several national and international piano competitions including the Friday Woodmere Music Club’s Young Artists Competition, and the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition.  As a winner of the Long Island Philharmonic’s Young Artist Competition, he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, K. 466 with the Long Island Philharmonic.  He won First Prize for the One-Piano, Four Hands Ensemble round of the Second New York Piano Competition sponsored by The Stecher and Horowitz Foundation.  A two-time winner of the Manhattan School of Music’s Piano Concerto Competition, he performed Gershwin’s Concerto in F and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kimball Gallagher's "dramatic and poetic piano playing rings deep and true" in the words of David Dubal, author of The Art of the Piano. Praised by the New York Times for a performances at Tanglewood which "deftly balanced the influences of the Chinese folk song and Western modernity in Bright Sheng's 'My Song.'" (August 18, 2004) Mr. Gallagher has received top prizes at the Corpus Christi International Piano Competition and at the San Antonio Tuesday Musical Club competition and was a finalist in the Washington International Competition. In 2001, Mr. Gallagher performed Bartok's 3rd Piano Concerto with the Shepherd School Symphony in Houston. In New York City, Mr. Gallagher has appeared in Alice Tully Hall, Paul Hall, and Morse Hall at the Juilliard School, as well as the Kosciusko Foundation and Faust Harrison Pianos. He has also played in Killian Hall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Boston Conservatory's Seully Hall. Mr. Gallagher has studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Joseph Smith, Robert McDonald, Jeanne Kierman Fischer, and Jonathan Bass. Mr. Gallagher is a graduate of Rice University and the Juilliard School.