PRELIMINARY JURY
Professor Lidia Boguslavsky is an “embodiment of a whole generation of great Russian piano pedagogues and performers”. Upon receiving Doctorate of Musical Arts from a prestigious Gnessin Institute at the age of twenty-five, Ms. Boguslavsky has already recorded numerous solo albums of contemporary Belarusian music by Dmitri Smolsky, Sergey Kortes, Grigoriy Surus, Edi Tyrmand for the Soviet Union National Radio Fund. Those recordings were broadcasted across fifteen republics of Soviet Union, making her the youngest professor at the Belarusian State Conservatory at the age of twenty-six.
Nicoletta Todesco is a guitarist based in New York City, faculty member and event manager of Classical Guitar Corner Academy.
During her career, Nicoletta studied and performed in masterclasses with world-renowned guitarists, including Pavel Steidl, Sharon Isbin, Paolo Pegoraro, Aniello Desiderio, Lorenzo Micheli, Duo Melis, Giampaolo Bandini, Bruno Giuffredi, Andrea Dieci.
Since the beginning of her career, Nicoletta is committed to music pedagogy. She taught guitar and music theory in several private and public institutions, both in Italy and the U.S, where she has been a teaching artist and teaching assistant at Yale University. In 2015, she spent a year in Aguascalientes (Mexico) promoting music education among children and young adults in collaboration with Italian NGO Engim.
Bangjun Xia is a native of Beijing, China. He had started learning violin at the age of 5. His first teacher was Lixin Chen, a violin professor at the College of Military Culture of the PLA National Defense University, and the Principal Violinist of the Song and Dance Ensemble of the PLA General Political Departments.
Bangjun is a winner of multiple awards: Gold medal of Golden Beijing Violin competition; Gold Medal at the Vivo international competition; and Gold medal at 3rd Anselmo Academy Youth Competition.
He had the honor of performing at The Great Hall of People at Tiananmen square, National Library of China, The Old Summer Palace and Baoli Theater in Beijing.
Bangjun had served as the Principal Violinist of High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China. He had led the orchestra of the Disneyland in LA.
He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege under professor Xiao Wang, and was a recipient of Kate Bamberger Memorial Scholarship.
Bangjun Xia is now attending Manhattan School of Music in Violin Studies under professor Lucie Robert.