Keys of Success

Two graduate students from Rice’s Shepherd School of Music—Clara Jung-Yang Shin and Kana Mimaki—are basking in the sun from their golden moment on an Italian island.

Clara Jung-Yang Shin

Each of the pianists brought home a gold medal from the Catania International Music Festival in Sicily, where they competed in the Rachmaninoff Concerto Competition. Shin, who won the silver medal in the 2004 World Piano Competition, struck gold this time when she played Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. As part of her prize, she was invited to return to Sicily in November to perform a series of concertos.

“What is more important to me than winning this competition is finding my music being accepted by musicians with different backgrounds,” says Shin, who is pursing a doctorate at Rice.

“Clara is a most compelling presence on stage, with true humanity in both her personality and her playing,” says Robert Roux, chair of the Rice piano program and Shin’s teacher for the past several years.

“During my education at Rice,” Shin says, “I gained tremendous confidence, leading me to believe that music is a universal language.” That confidence also has led Shin to seek more challenges in the music world. “I believed that the Catania Music Festival could open the door to more opportunities, and I couldn’t have been happier when the results were positive.”

Success has led to more success. Because she won the gold, Shin was invited to perform in January at the Atheneul Roman in Bucharest. In the spring, she will be back in Catania to perform a piano quintet at a chamber music festival. Also in the spring, she will be participating in the Steinway Festival in Gainesville, Florida, where she will have a chance to play for Philippe Entremont, a renowned French conductor and pianist.

After Shin completes her work Rice, she plans to give a recital in October 2006 at the Seoul Art Center, which is home to the Korean National University of Arts. This performance will be of special significance to Shin for two reasons: she had her debut concert there in 1993, and it was the last time her grandmother heard her play before she died. “This performance is going to be quite an emotional one for me,” she admits.

Mimaki, another of Roux’s doctoral students, won first place for Rachmaninoff’s First Piano Concerto with the Berlin RIAS Youth Orchestra, directed by Daisuke Soga. She is acclaimed as a soloist who performs evenly and effortlessly and produces a golden tone, and she also is described as a technically perfect collaborative pianist.

Kana Mimaki

“It was an absolutely great experience for me,” says Mimaki, who started playing the piano at age 3 in Japan. Only two years later, she won her first piano competition. After graduating from a renowned high school for music, Mimaki found her way into the premier Japanese school of music, the Tokyo National University of Music and Fine Arts. As an undergraduate, she was invited by Herbert Stessin to attend the Aspen Music Festival, where she went on to win the E. Nakamichi Piano Concerto Competition. Following the completion of her bachelor’s degree, Mimaki returned to the United States to receive her master of music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has studied with and played master classes for many internationally acclaimed pianists, including Gilbert Kalish, Anton Kuerti, Mack McCray, John Perry, Menahem Pressler, Andre Watts, and Roux.

“Kana is a brilliant young artist with great technique as well as sensitivity,” Roux says. “She is fully deserving of the numerous accolades she has earned.”

The Catania Festival is just the latest of Mimaki’s recent achievements, which include first prize awards from the Los Angeles Liszt Competition and the International Russian Music Competition. Her awards have helped establish her as a concert pianist of note, and she now has performed in nearly every major city in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe. Her benefit solo piano recital last October at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts raised more than $70,000 for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. She has concerts booked for three years in advance, including a much anticipated second recital at the Hobby Center in March.

—David D. Medina