The 2026 Heida Hermanns International Music Competition
Judges
Frederic Chiu
Head Judge
Frederic Chiu plays major venues on five continents: Lincoln Center in New York, Le Châtelet in Paris, the Mozarteum in Buenos Aires, and extensive tours in smaller and unusual venues. He collaborates with Classical music friends Joshua Bell, Pierre Amoyal and the St Lawrence String Quartet, as well as non-Classical friends like jazz pianist Bob James or storyteller David Gonzalez, to bring vivid live piano experiences to all audiences. Frederic Chiu recorded the most extensive complete piano works of Prokofiev, and his personal relationship with the Prokofiev family makes him a world-recognized advocate of the composer. Across 30+ albums, he has recorded works of Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Rossini and Grieg. His wide recording legacy is seen in his latest recordings: Beethoven/Liszt Symphonies V and VII, “Hymns and Dervishes,” music of Gurdjieff/de Hartmann, “Distant Voices: Music of Claude Debussy & Gao Ping,” and Schubert’s Fantasy for Violin and Piano. His innovative programming includes “Classical Smackdown,” where composers face off in head-to-head comparisons, with listeners voting for their favorite composer: Debussy vs. Prokofiev, Bach vs. Glass, Mendelssohn vs. Chopin before age 20. Results tracked at ClassicalSmackdown.com. With his wife, Jeanine Esposito, he co-created the arts non-profit, Beechwood Arts & Innovation to explore collaboration across art genres and the integration of arts and technology to foster community. His innovative vision of Romeo & Juliet – The Choice, an interactive production of the popular Prokofiev ballet, debuted in 2018. Frederic teaches at both Carnegie Mellon University and The Hartt School.
Steven Spooner
Final Round
Steven Spooner has been hailed as “the real deal, a pianist of apparently limitless raw technique that’s almost note perfect-He might be the best faculty pianist I’ve heard” (American Record Guide), with performances that evidence “Richter’s peerless focus, Gilels’s gold-plated sound, Cliburn’s urbane aesthetics, and Horowitz’s outgoing personality.” The Washington Post marveled at his “dazzling, blurry-handed sweeps of the entire piano.” In 2025, he was featured on Living the Creative Life, the most-watched classical music show, hosted by Zsolt Bognar, discussing his extraordinary life in music and monumental body of recordings.
Professor of Piano at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and newly appointed to the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School, Spooner has trained winners of multiple prizes at major international competitions at every level. Previously teaching as a Visiting Professor at The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division, where he covered the studio of legendary pedagogue Yoheved Kaplinsky, he serves as Artistic Director of the Chicago International Competition and Festival and is increasingly in demand for his masterclasses at leading conservatories worldwide. He has served on the faculty of many of the most prestigious summer festivals and regularly sits on juries of international competitions.
A prizewinner at all seven international piano competitions he entered, Spooner took First Prize and the Niekamp Career Grant as most outstanding pianist in French music at the Paris Conservatory and top prizes at the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. In 2008, he was awarded the Ivory Classics Foundation Prize that enabled him to study with the legendary virtuoso Earl Wild. At the International Liszt Competition, Russian piano legend and Moscow Conservatory Professor Victor Merzhanov praised his “deep understanding of the contents of Liszt’s works, organic and instinctive feeling of form and outstanding virtuosity,” noting that “his pianistic art must attract more attention from concert organizers around the world.”
Milana Strezeva
Final Round
Milana Strezeva is an accomplished pianist, founding member of the Manhattan Piano Trio, and co-founder of the Grand Piano Series in Naples, Florida. Milana’s experience as a stellar performer and strategic arts executive has come together at the Grand Piano Series, where she has demonstrated an innate ability to foster collaborations and contribute positively to community enrichment through music.
Praised by the critics for her “technically fluid, dramatically convincing, and sonically full-bodied supportive collaborations” (Boston Globe), Milana Strezeva is a Moldovan-American pianist. At the age of 11, she began playing chamber music with her clarinetist father and her mother, a renowned soprano, Svetlana Strezeva. Milana’s love for family collaboration eventually grew into a passionate advocacy of vocal and instrumental chamber music.
Milana is a recipient of Grand Prizes at the Plowman Chamber Music Competition, Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Listeners Choice Award in Melbourne, IBLA International Competition as a vocal collaborator, and Arts Recognition and Talent Search Award. Among the prominent venues in which she has performed are – Carnegie Hall (New York), Jordan Hall (Boston), Kravis Center (West Palm Beach), Gusman Hall (Miami); Shenzhen Concert Hall (China), South Melbourne Town Hall (Australia), Linder Auditorium (South Africa).
Milana has received her training at The Juilliard School as a student of Bella Davidovich and Julian Martin. Milana lives in Naples, Florida with her husband Raniero Tazzi.
Amy Gustafson
Preliminary Round Judge
Praised for her “exquisite sensitivity” and a “style filled with class and elegance” by La Voz de Asturias (Asturias, Spain) and recognized as a “talented player who doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter mold” by Lucid Culture (New York City), American pianist Amy E. Gustafson has performed across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Her debut album, Reverie, consists of music by Claude Debussy and was released in June 2017. Her second album From Darkness to Light was released in the spring of 2026.
Notable performances include replacing the late legendary pianist Abbey Simon in Los Angeles at LACMA’s series, Sundays Live, an appearance with the Sofia Sinfionetta in Sofia, Bulgaria, a performance with Ensemble Tayada in Candas, Spain. Other engagements have taken her to Spain, China, and Canada, and she has also performed New York City venues, such as Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, Trinity Church Wall Street, Tenri Cultural Institute, CAMI Hall and the Kosciuszko Foundation.
Gustafson completed her studies at the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Her major teachers have included Julian Martin, Andre-Michel Schub, Anton Nel, Constance Keene, and Miyoko Lotto, and she has benefited from the advice of many renowned pedagogues, including Solomon Mikowsky, Arie Vardi, Veda Kaplinsky, Robert McDonald, Paul Badura-Skoda, Marc Durand, Martin Canin, Leslie Howard, and Luiz de Moura Castro.
In addition to her performing career, Gustafson has served on the faculty of the Millersville University and Elizabethtown College and the Cynthia Sternberg Schein Chamber Music Institute in State College. She is Executive Director and Faculty of the Gijón International Piano Festival in Gijón, Spain, as well as the Director of the Palmetto International Piano Festival in South Carolina. Previously, Dr. Gustafson directed the Boal Mansion Museum Concert Series in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania and The Stony Brook International Piano Festival in Stony Brook, New York.
Amy E. Gustafson is a Yamaha Artist.
David Kaplan
Preliminary Round Judge
David Kaplan is an American piano soloist and chamber musician, originally from New York City and now based in Los Angeles.
Kaplan has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. As orchestra soloist, he has appeared with the Britten Sinfonia at London’s Barbican, Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin at the Philharmonie, and with the Symphony Orchestras of Baltimore, Hawaii, San Antonio, among others. As recitalist, he has performed at the Ravinia Festival, Sarasota Opera House, Music on Main in Vancouver, Strathmore, Washington’s National Gallery, and New York’s Carnegie and Merkin Halls.
Balancing solo performances with meaningful collaborations, Kaplan has played with the Attacca, Ariel, Enso, Hausman, and Tesla String Quartets. As a core member of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall, he performs frequently in New York’s most exciting venues, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to National Sawdust, as well as creating innovative residencies as far away as Abu Dhabi, Mexico, and Scotland. The ensemble’s self-titled debut album was recorded at Tippet Rise Art Center, and has been nominated for a 2024 GRAMMY for the premiere recording of Valerie Coleman’s “Revelry,” originally composed for Decoda in 2018.
Kaplan was a student of the late Claude Frank, and previously studied with Walter Ponce and Miyoko Lotto. His mentors over the years have included Anton Kuerti, Richard Goode, and Emanuel Ax. He studied conducting at the Universität der Künste Berlin with Lutz Köhler, under the auspices of a Fulbright Fellowship from 2008-2010. The recipient of a DMA from Yale University in 2014, Kaplan earned his Bachelor from UCLA, where he has also served on the faculty since 2016, and now is the Associate Professor and Inaugural Shapiro Family Chair in Piano Performance.
David is proud to be a Yamaha/Bösendorfer Artist, and when at home in Los Angeles, he enjoys practicing on his childhood piano, a 1908 Hamburg Steinway model A. Away from the keyboard, he loves cartooning and cooking, and is mildly obsessed with classic cars.
