Consider the annual ACIMA festival a wonderful opportunity for musicians to get together and share ideas with students who are passionate about music.
Yoheved Kaplinsky
Piano Department Chair of The Juilliard School
President of The Juilliard School Pre-College Division
ACIMA Advisory Board Member
As performers we are endlessly laying bare our innermost sense of values. Each musical decision we make can be seen as a barometer of our many other life choices. A wise friend once told me: "If you always choose to do what seems easy, your life will most likely be hard; if you choose what seems hard, you will find your life increasingly easier as it goes." Let us aim to make the rich choices, in music and in life.
Chu-Fang Huang
Artistic Director of ACIMA
Winner in Multiple International Piano Competition
ACIMA Advisory Board Member
True musical growth is never about being superior to your peers, it is being superior to your former self.
Gary Graffman
Former President of Curtis Institute of Music
ACIMA Advisory Board Member
Choosing to live a life as an artist means to be creative in all that you do, to think deeply, to experience each moment fully, and to bring all of it into your work. Everything must be in service to the music itself. Find joy in discovering its secrets, and avoid imposing ulterior motives in your interpretations.
Ernest Barreta
Piano Faculty of The Juilliard School
ACIMA Advisory Board Member
The secret to finding proper historical style for music is to find the way in which it is most interesting and most beautiful.
Jerome Lowenthal
Piano Faculty of The Juilliard School
ACIMA Advisory Board Member
Some of the most valuable advice I ever received came from my first piano teacher. She frequently admonished me, “if you can find anything else in this life in which you excel, do that!” We cannot sustain a meaningful profession in music unless we're absolutely convinced that we cannot live without it. Her words have come back to me countless times over the decades. If music doesn't bring us endless joy, we cannot assume that our music making can bring joy to anyone else.
Julian Martin
Juror of Multiple International Piano Competitions
ACIMA Advisory Board Member
Do not seek to please or impress with your playing, but seek to make the composer's deepest feelings and intentions your own.
Ignat Solzhenitsyn
Piano Faculty of The Juilliard School
Juror of Multiple International Piano Competitions
ACIMA Advisory Board Member
2023 ACIMA New York Winter Music Festival Jan. 28th - Feb. 18th, 2023
2023 ACIMA New York Winter Music Festival Jan. 28th - Feb. 18th, 2023
2023 ACIMA New York Winter Music Festival
Jan. 28th - Feb. 18th, 2023
Founded by internationally acclaimed Chinese-American pianist Chu-Fang Huang in 2008, ACIMA (Ameri-China International Music Association) promotes the exchange of musical culture between the East and the West, providing educational and financial support for young and talented pianists to further elevate their career goals.
Since 2009, ACIMA has encouraged artistic exchanges between China and the US, with annual music festivals, competitions, and summer camps. In 2018 ACIMA launched its annual New York International Winter Festival, featuring lectures, masterclasses and concert series led by world-renowned artists and professors from institutions like The Juilliard School and The Curtis Institute of Music.
ACIMA will be holding its fourth New York Festival from January 28th to February 18th, 2023.
Apply to participate as performers or active observers, by January 15th, 2023.
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Application Requirements
Performer:
Performance Video Links (requirements can be found in application form)
Non-refundable application fee: $150
Tuition: $1980
~Tuition includes~
2 masterclasses performances
Tickets to all masterclasses
Tickets to all lectures
Tickets to all concerts
Semi-Final eligibility to the Metropolitan International Piano Competition
Priorities in applying for additional masterclasses or private lessons*
Certification of completion with autographs of all festival faculties
Customized audition preparation plan
2 Recommendation letters (within one year)
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Active Observer:
~Tuition includes~
Tickets to 60 masterclasses
Tickets to all lectures
Tickets to 3 concerts
Eligibility of applying for private lessons**
Certification of participation signed by festival faculties
Customized future study plan
*Applications for additional masterclasses or private lessons must be submitted to the festival committee by Jan. 20th, 2023. Payments must be made on the day of approval ($500 / lesson). The approval of additional masterclasses or private lessons are subject to the faculty and the festival committee.
**Active Observers who would like to apply for private lessons, please attach performance video links to your online application (requirements can be found in application form).
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Chu-Fang Huang
·Artistic Director of the ACIMA
·A.D from The Juilliard School
·M.M from The Juilliard School
·B.M from The Curtis Institute of Music
Recipient of the 2011 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Chinese-American pianist Chu-Fang Huang has won enthusiastic responses from both audiences and critics alike in extensive orchestral and recital appearances in the U.S. and abroad.
In 2005 Ms. Huang was named a finalist in the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. and subsequently became the first Chinese pianist to win First Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Later that year, Ms. Huang won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and was awarded the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Mortimer Levitt Piano Chair of YCA, and the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women Artists.
Since her Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall in 2005, Ms. Huang has given recitals at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, and in other major venues throughout the U.S. in Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Fort Worth, Miami, San Francisco, and Cambridge. In Europe, she has been re-engaged three times at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, as well as at the Ruhr Festival in Germany, the Chopin Festival in Poland, Louvre Museum in France, Sydney Opera House in Australia, Suntory Hall in Japan, Beijing Zhong-Shan Music Hall, Fujian National Auditorium, and Liao-ning Grand Opera House in China.
Ms. Huang began her early studies at the Shenyang Music Conservatory. She immigrated to the US at fifteen and made her U.S. recital debut at the La Jolla Music Society's Prodigy Series. After earning her Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Claude Frank and Gary Graffman, she received her Master of Music degree and the Artist Diploma from the Juilliard School, as a pupil of Robert McDonald.
Ms. Huang currently resides in New York City when not traveling and serves as the artistic director of the Ameri-China International Music Association, a nonprofit organization devoted to bridging the musical cultures of the US and China. Her dedication to this purpose has been widely acknowledged by the music industry as well as national officials. Ms. Huang was named as one of Ten Outstanding Chinese Americans alongside Yao Ming and Wendi Deng, and has been invited to give performances and lectures at both the Embassy of China in Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
There is probably nothing more exciting than naming a piano after yourself. Over the past 95 years, generations of the Kawai family have devoted a lot of knowledge, technology, craftsmanship and heart in pursuit of the art of making the perfect piano. "What cannot be compromised needs to be passed on from generation to generation.” is the passion that Mr. Koichi Kawai has adhered to since the beginning of his business. "What needs to be changed, we innovate boldly.” is a challenge of putting cutting-edge technology into traditional craftsmanship. Carrying the passion and the challenge, KAWAI takes "Delivering more affection" as its brand promise, and shares joy and satisfaction with customers around the world through music.
“Manufacturing affection” by “manufacturing pianos”, KAWAI aims to be an irreplaceable partner with our customers in the past 95 years and in the future. KAWAI's inheritance and innovation will never stop.
