Meet the 2025 Cliburn competitors

28 pianists. 15 countries. These are the faces of this year’s Cliburn Competition! The competition will take place from May 21st to June 7th at Van Cliburn Concert Hall at TCU and Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas, USA.

The 2022 competition was one of the most-watched classical music events in history, and this year’s competition will likely attract an even larger audience. Previous winners include names such as Yunchan Lim, Haochen Zhang, Nobuyuki Tsujii, Olga Kern and Vadym Kholodenko. Out of 340 applicants, 28 compete in a Preliminary round featuring repertoire of their choosing from a predetermined list, including Gabriela Montero’s commissioned new work. Each pianist’s commitment to their craft is sure to shine through this year, with finalists performing over four hours of music in total. Join us and an international audience on May 21 to cheer on our competitors!

Preliminary round qualifiers:

• Alice Burla (Canada)

• Carter Johnson (Canada/United States)

• Yangrui Cai (China)

• Yanjun Chen (China)

• Jiarui Cheng (China)

• Sangru Du (China)

• Xiaofu Ju (China)

• Aristo Sham (Hong Kong, China)

• Xuanxiang Wu (China)

• David Khrikuli (Georgia)

• Jonas Aumiller (Germany)

• Elia Cecino (Italy)

• Federico Gad Crema (Italy)

• Kotaro Shigemori (Japan)

• Ryoto Yamazaki (Japan)

• Magdalene Ho (Malaysia)

• Piotr Alexewicz (Poland)

• Mikhail Kambarov (Russia)

• Philipp Lynov (Russia)

• Vitaly Starikov (Israel/Russia)

• Chaeyoung Park (South Korea)

• Sung Ho Yoo (South Korea)

• Pedro López Salas (Spain)

• Roman Fediurko (Ukraine)

• Callum McLachlan (United Kingdom)

• Jonathan Mamora (United States)

• Evren Ozel (United States)

• Angel Stanislav Wang (United States)