|
The Malaysian-born pianist, Ming Aldrich-Gan, had established himself as a prominent young artist in that country before coming to the USA, having won both the First Prize and the Special Prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Piece at the Malaysian National Piano Festival in 2001, and given concert tours around the country. He was also a finalist at both the Ettlingen and Vladimir Krainev International Competitions for Young Pianists in Germany, 2002 and Ukraine, 2000, respectively.
Ming Aldrich-Gan completed his undergraduate studies at the Bard College Conservatory of Music in May 2010, earning bachelor's degrees in piano performance, computer science, and mathematics. There, he studied piano performance with Melvin Chen and Peter Serkin. Ming has been an active contributor to the Bard music scene, regularly performing both solo and chamber music on and off campus. He is currently serving his alma mater as a Collaborative Piano Fellow. In 2006 (during his second year at Bard), he won the Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition with Johannes Brahms' D-minor piano concerto. In 2007, he was a finalist at the Music Academy of the West's concerto competition with Scriabin's Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor, Op. 20.
Ming Aldrich-Gan is equally comfortable with jazz and rock-and-roll as he is with the classical canon. He is also deeply passionate about musical theater. While at Bard, he directed student productions of Sweeney Todd and The Fantasticks, musically directed many other shows, and was in the cast of several.
Within the classical realm, Ming Aldrich-Gan is especially interested in Romantic interpretations of Baroque music. For his senior recital, he offered Ferruccio Busoni's editions, with his own additions, of J.S. Bach's D-minor keyboard concerto (BWV 1052) and Goldberg Variations (BWV 988). In February 2008, he made his debut with the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Botstein, performing Scriabin's Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor, Op. 20. “There is no style of music that he will not play,” Leon Botstein once said of him. |
