Ryan Sheng

Ryan Sheng began playing the piano at age of four, and currently studies under Professor Boris Berman at the Yale School of Music. He has been a prizewinner of international and regional competitions, including 1st prize and special prize at the 10th Rosario Marciano International Competition Group II; Honorable Mention at the 2025 Wideman Piano Competition; 3rd prize at the 2019 Virginia Waring International Piano Competition Intermediate; 2nd prize, Audience Award, and the Young Jury prize at the Emory Young Artist Piano Competition; and first prize at the 2018 Pacific Music Competition. Other awards include the YSM Elizabeth Parisot Prize, Palo Alto Philharmonic Concerto Movement Competition, the 2020 Ross McKee Foundation Award, Golden State Youth Orchestra Solo Competition, and the 1st prize at the 2021 Marilyn Mindell Piano Competition.

In 2025, he was invited to perform in a series of recitals of various contexts in Shreveport, Louisiana as part of the Wideman Spring Festival. As a winner of the 2019 PianoTexas Concerto Competition, he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 467 with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Miguel Harth-Bedoya. In 2017, he made his solo debut in Belgium at the Brussels Music Festival, and from 2022-2024 he performed solo concerts in the Netherlands at International Holland Music Sessions. In 2022, he also appeared with the Golden State Youth Orchestra and the Palo Alto Philharmonic for performances of the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto.

Ryan has participated in renowned festivals with full-merit scholarships, including the 2019 Cliburn Junior, 2019 PianoTexas Young Artist Festival, 2021 Southeastern Piano Festival, and the 2023 Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival.

Ryan was a founding member of the local Evergreen Ensemble. He also developed his musicianship with Young Chamber Musicians for multiple years. For 10 years, he volunteered at Grace Music Institute as a teacher and later as music director. He also curated the Youth Artist Benefit Series by Ensemble San Francisco from 2020-2022.

He formerly studied with Prof. Frank Levy and Mrs. Anna Polonsky. He has also benefited from the masterclasses of Robert McDonald, John Perry, Olga Kern, Boris Slutsky, Wei-Yi Yang, Alexander Kobrin, Douglas McHumpherys, Ran Dank, Marina Lomazov, Joseph Rackers, Tamás Ungár, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Stephan Möller, Polina Osetinskaya, Erna Gulabyan, Elizabeth Schumann, and Rufus Choi