2023 Artciál International Piano Competition Prize Winners

Congratulations on this remarkable achievement!

2023 SFIPC Winner’s Performance Playlist, click here.

2023 Artist Category

Professional Artist

Bingjian Chen, born in 2003, began to play the piano at six years old and was performing by the age of ten. She entered the Middle School affiliated to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at the age of 12 and finished her high school diploma there. She is admitted into the Colburn Conservatory of Music in the year 2022 and she is pursuing her bachelor's degree there now, under Fabio Bidini.
Bingjian has performed both as a soloist and a chamber musician in venues like Shanghai Heluting Concert Hall, Xiamen Concert Hall, Rocca Sforzesca, and CCTV (China Central Television). She has taken lessons and masterclasses with Chuan Qin, Анна Шелудько, Jin Ju, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Maxim Mogilevsky, Xiaosheng Zhao, Jenny Q Chai.

Hanwen Shi

Hanwen Shi was born in Nanjing, Jiang Su province, China, in 1999 and started to practice piano at 4. Respectively, he was mentored by a former teacher of Nanjing Art College, then by Pianist and Professor Wenchuan Zheng from Jiangsu Academy of Drama. In 2012, he was admitted by Music Middle School affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Teacher Qi Zhang. From 2014, he was supervised by Dr. Prof. Cheung-yu Mo, Director of the Piano Department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In 2018, He studied at New England Conservatory with Professor Alexander Korsantia, the gold medal winner of the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition and Sydney International Piano Competition. During these years, he attended many music festivals such as Bowdoin, Aspen, and Morning side Music Bridge and studied with teachers such as Krzysztof Jablonski, Anton Nel, Fabio Bidini, Hung-kuan Chen and so on . In 2019, He was invited as a guest performer in TedxYouth@HuizhanRd. In November same year, he was invited by Benjamin Zander, the famous conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, to participate in the open music class. In September 2020, he was invited to perform Yellow River Concerto with Nanjing Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2013, He won the First prize in Chopin Etude group, First prize in Beethoven Sonata group, and second prize in the free choice group in the first Singapore International Youth Piano Competition. Same year, He won the "16th Changjiang Cup International Youth Piano Competition" first prize in the junior middle school group in Japan, also the award and bonus of the Chinese Consul General in Osaka. In 2022, he attended the 7th Tbilisi international piano competition.

Hanwen Shi

Twenty-six year old American pianist Rachel Breen’s performances have been described as “truly show-stopping” (Gramophone UK), having “a beautiful piano sound and original detail.” She is a student of the late Lars Vogt at Hannover's Hochschule für Musik; previously, she completed degrees at Yale University and the Juilliard School under–respectively–Boris Slutsky and Julian Martin. Breen was self-taught until age 10, when she began lessons with Dr. Sharon Mann at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Breen has enjoyed an active competition career, having been awarded top prizes at the Bösendorfer International Competition (2023), the Honens International Piano Competition (2022), Concorso Internazionale Palma D’Oro (2022), the Beethoven International Competition in Vienna (2021), the Livorno International Piano Competition (2020), the Georges Cziffra International Competition (2019), the Nuova Coppa Pianisti International Competition (2019), the Gallinari International Competition (2019), Premio Melini (2019), and Concurso Internacional de Piano Compositores de España (2018), among others. She was selected as the 2021-23 National Federation of Music Clubs’ Young Artist in the US, and received the 2021 Kurt Alten Prize at her university in Germany.