Author: Music and Stars Awards

My name is Piotr Czerwinski and I am 17 years old. I have been playing the piano for 12 years. It gives me great joy, so practicing is not a duty, but a passion.

I practice depending on the day, from 3 to 6 hours a day. I always start with a warm-up after which I play moody slow pieces. Then I practice the rest of the program. My dream is to give concerts all over the world.

I love playing in concerts, especially with an orchestra. Then I feel like a fish in water. For almost 10 years I have been playing for charity at concerts in community centers.

In addition to classical music, especially Frederic Chopin, I also listen to American old-school rap. I love sports, especially football. My biggest dream is to see live the World Cup finals in football.

I am Mariya Akhadjanova. I was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and started playing piano at age 6. I am currently an ABD student finishing her doctorate studies in piano under Dr. Ksenia Nosikova at the University of Iowa. In October 2021, I performed at Carnegie Hall, New York, as a winner of the 2021 “Golden Classical Music Awards” International Competition and in May 2022 at Merkin Concert Hall, Lincoln Center, in New York City as a finalist and a winner of the second prize of the Music International Grand Prix 2022.  In the past few years, I participated in different online piano competitions and received First Prize of the Charleston International Competition, the Swiss International Music Competition and was selected for the Career Project, Platinum Medal in 2022 Quebec Music Competition.

I have been studying for 4 years with Dr. Ksenia Nosikova who helped me so much with listening, thinking, analysing, and finding different ways to show the beauty of music. I feel so grateful to be her student.

I like to play all styles of music, but if I have to choose something, then it would be Russian composers: Rachmaninoff, Scriabin. I like to participate in competitions. It helps to grow more as a musician by competing with others and first with yourself. Daily practice helps to improve your skills, it is not necessary only physical, but also mental practice should be useful. 

If I had to choose a humanitarian project, it would be to build a shelter for stray pets and provide them with everything so that they would not feel lonely and unloved.

“I am Yu-Jou Shih and I was born in Taiwan in 2016. I began receiving formal piano lessons when I was 5 years old. I am currently a student of prof. Karen Chiang.

I had won many awards in international and local piano competitions in 2022 including Winner of Kawai Music School Piano Competition (First & Second grade and Kids Category), 1st prize in Falla Music Competition, 2st prize in Fantastique Music Competition, Silver Prize Winner in The Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, Grand Prize at the USA classical music international competition held in 2022 by IYMC(invited to the New York prize winners’ recital), Gold Prize and Best Modern Performance in Music and Stars Awards, etc.

I like classical and modern music very much . Most pieces of music are Willian Gillock. Even if it is a short piece, I will do my best. My everyday routine practice starts etudes. I will also spend 1 hours playing a few repertoires either my teacher assigned to me or I would like to prepare. Once my teacher think it is OK, We will also record my performance by a camera, both my teacher and mom will give me some advices after we checked my recordings.

In addition to playing the piano, I love drawing and ballet as well. My dream is to become a professional pianist、painter or a performing artist. I have always been passionate about playing the piano. In each of my piano pieces, you can see my different playing skills and emotions.”

“I was born in Bordeaux, I have dual nationality (Franco German), I did my secondary studies and I obtained my TMD Baccalaureate with honors.  I also studied at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux where I obtained a diploma in cello and music theory.  For my higher education I took lessons with Raphael Pidoux for 3 years and he gave me a letter of recommendation, as did Matias De Oliveira Pinto and Hans Rabus in Berlin.  I also obtained this year two gold medals and 4 silver with competition.

My favorite music is Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote. 

I practice 4 hours of cello per day including holidays. Before a competition or practicing, I do warm-up exercises. It’s not the day of the competition that you have to start working, it’s before. I also studied with Böchtter, Riniker and Menking.  They all taught me ethics, humility, autonomy and to be myself. 

My dream is to become principal cello in an orchestra and to be a concert performer.

The humanitarian project I would choose is the hunger in the world.

“Hello everyone! I am the Dr. (Ph.D) M° Concetta Seila Mammoccio. I was born in 1989 in Vaduz (F. Liechtenstein). I am an Italian videographic producer and concert pianist multi-winner of the Non Plus Ultra virtuoso repertoire, with more than 1,480,000 views from over 100 countries, on my YouTube channel. I have a palmarès of over 50 victories in the piano, videographic and literary fields and I perform regularly in the most renowned concert halls of the globe including Carnegie Hall, Bozar, Concertgebouw.

Absolutely my favorite Art is Music, understood as a form of universal language, that through any genre, any contamination, is able to reflect and immediately transmit the essence of each one, their ideals, their feelings without filters and without fictions.

For a professional pianist like me who performs virtuoso repertoires of a certain caliber and at high speed, playing means training every day for repeated hours. Just like an athlete, it is necessary to preserve and improve one’s prowess, strength, agility, resistance, power and muscle flexibility, refine the technique, and this is achieved exclusively with constant exercise.

I believe that a multisectoral cultural preparation is indispensable. I play, study and deepen in detail every aspect: technical, expressive, compositional, aesthetic, musical, literary, sound and scenic curating and researching the perfect symbiosis between my personal artistic interpretative vision and musical historiographical fidelity.

I graduated in piano with the Ministerial Abbreviation for Merit granted by the Italian Ministry and I obtained the Master in level II with 110 Cum Laude in performance practice and compositional piano repertoire. The study and the musical career teach the discipline, the value of dedication, the spirit of sacrifice, to improve and to always perfect, to believe and invest in personal potential, evolving the uniqueness of oneself and one’s ideas, and that the only capital on which it is necessary to invest is human capital.

My mission as a teacher is to leave a testimony to future generations: to live for a dream, to fight for a dream, to die for a dream, because time is not money, time is everyone’s dream and it is worth realizing it.

I am also a writer and a criminologist, graduated in law, and I support projects on Non-Violence. I firmly believe that Music is the only infallible weapon that man has to move consciences and to restore peace, love and brotherhood in the world. Give a megaphone to a man and he will enslave us, give a megaphone to Art and set us free.”

Smeralda Nunnari (Messina, 23 November 1993), pianist, poet, editor at TGmusic.it, computer expert, artistic videomaker and youtuber popularizer. In constant search of καλοκαγαθία, she boasts precious international awards in various artistic fields. 

In the piano field, the following are enumerable: the Silver Prize, as a piano interpreter, obtained for the Creative Videos Category, in the Autumn Season of the International Competition “Global Genius Music Competition”; the Gold Prize, obtained with her piano performance, for the Creative Videos Section, in the Winter Season of the International Competition “Global Genius Music Competition”; a subsequent Gold Prize, to his interpretation on the piano, for the Creative Videos Category, in the Spring Season of the International Competition “Global Genius Music Competition” and, finally, the Bronze Star, in the Best Video Instrumentalist Category, of the “Music & Stars Awards – The World Shining Talent “, July 1, 2022. 

In the literary sector, various awards stand out, including the Mention of merit, in reference to the Second Dostoevsky International Prize, in the Music Section, with his song “I and the Piano keys” (“Moi et les touches du piano”); at the XXII International Competition of Unpublished Poetry “Habere Artem”, with his poem “Small borders” (“Kleine Grenzen”); the awards as Poet selected at the VII Salvatore Quasimodo International Prize, with his poetic text “Lo scossone” and at the XIV International Competition of Unpublished Poetry “Parole in Fuga”, with his poem “La Vita”. 

Among the literary publications, there are those relating to the respective Anthologies of Aletti Editore, those relating to Vol. 41 of the Poetic Series “The poets of Via Margutta”, by Dantebus Edizioni; the Diploma of Honor of the Poems of the Christian Religion, for his poem “November 22, Santa Cecilia”, selected among the best poems and published in the Volume: Sommi Pontifici (Illustrated history of the 266 Popes ascended to the throne of St. Peter) of Penna d’Autore edition. 

Thanks to Dantebus Edizioni and Poeti e Poesia, some of his poems have been transposed onto fascinating videos between images and music, such as “I due powers” (“Usque ad inferos, usque ad sidera”) and “The well of the soul”. 

Furthermore, for the Alessandro Quasimodo Project he reads the Contemporary Authors, the reading, by the very illustrious Maestro, of seven of his compositions is in the process of being published. 

Currently, after the achievement of the ten-year Diploma in Piano (Old Order), at the “A. Corelli ”of Messina, she is attending a further piano specialization course and is enrolled in the Faculty of Law. 

Going into the maze of purely musical tastes, we discover that she loves listening to classical music, among her favorite authors of hers emerge Ludwig van Beethoven; Richard Wagner; Franz Liszt; Fryderyk Chopin; Claude Debussy; etc… 

In the continuous search for absolute perfection, he studies daily, both because he lives on music, and because his dream is to make known, in the best possible way, his very personal artistic world, where, in addition to music, he also finds a place. poetry, thus contributing, in its small way, to the sublimation of Art. 

She would like to extend each day by another twenty-four hours, not to send forty-eight to the cards, but to be able to do more and, always, better. 

As an Artist, faced with the current problems, which seem to make the future of all humanity uncertain and dark, she would also like to become a scientist or politician, not out of lust for power, but to be of help in finding the right and adequate resolutions, from small to large problems.

“I’m Stephen Cui and I was born in Toronto, Canada. I started my violin journey when I was 5 years old in the Royal Conservatory of Music. One year later when I was 6, I added piano into my music toolbox. In 2019, I moved to Bellevue, Washington (United States) with my family. After that, I have been studying violin and piano with Dr. Cristian Neacsu and Dr. Qian Yin Neacsu. 

During my music learning journey, I have won several prizes and awards. In 2020, I won the third prize at the International Competition of Romantic Music in NYC. In 2022, I won the first prize of the “Golden Classical Music Awards” International Competition, and the silver star (piano) Music and Stars Award. I was also awarded the first class honors with distinction in Royal Conservatory Violin exam (level 7) and the first class honors in Royal Conservatory Piano exam (level 7).

My favorite music is from Succession, a popular television series. The music combines classical and modern elements with multiple instruments. I enjoying listening to it when I have some free time.

I practice for 2-3 hours every day and I do warm-up exercises before practicing, and I prepare for competitions by practicing and listening to the piece I am playing. I study with Dr. Cristian Neacsu and Dr. Qian Yin Neacsu.”

Veerindhra Songthaveephol (Kelly), 7-years old, Year 2 student from Shrewsbury International School City Campus Bangkok, Thailand.

I dreamed of being a Pianist.
I started my first piano lesson at the age of five with Mrs.Thawanhathai Rujichaitammakul assisting D.M.A. Christopher Janwong McKiggan.

In 2020 which was my first time in the Piano Competition, I have been awarded in several international piano competitions; for instance, Absolute Prize in 14th Concorso Internazionale Musicale, Gold Prize in the 22nd OSAKA International Music Competition, First Prize in King’s Peak International Music Competition.

I love listening to any kind of music, especially Classical piano music. I normally practice piano at least one hour a day, starting to warm-up with the scales. Besides my piano activity, I always participate in singing charities and the school choir band.