PORT ANGELES — Peninsula College alumni Anson Ka Lik Sin, an award-winning pianist, will present a free recital in the college’s Maier Concert Hall at 2 p.m. Saturday.
In February, Sin won the third prize, silver award in the Manhattan International Young Artists Music Festival. He is currently invited to perform in the Prizewinners Gala Concert at New York Carnegie Hall in July.
Sin is currently studying, on full scholarship, with Alexander Tutunov at Southern Oregon University, where he is pursuing a graduate degree in piano performance and serves as a teaching assistant.
“He will return to Port Angeles to generously share his talent with the people of Port Angeles and the North Olympic Peninsula who supported him during his time as a student here,” said Kari Desser, public information officer at Peninsula College.
Sin will perform two sonatas for piano: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata in Eb, Op. 81a (“Les Adieux”) and Sonata No. 1 by contemporary Australian composer, Carl Vine.
With the assistance of Mark Johnson, a pianist recently arrived in Port Angeles, Sin also will perform two movements from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major and the two-piano original version of Maurice Ravel’s “Ma mère l’Oye” (“Mother Goose Suite”).
As a student at Peninsula College, Sin, a native of Hong Kong, studied piano with Kristin Quigley Brye and violin with Heather Marie Ray.
In addition to performing in the violin sections of the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra, Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Port Townsend Community Orchestra, and winning Honorable Mention in the 2013 Young Artist Competition, Sin performed both Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Port Townsend Community Orchestra under the baton of the late Dewey Ehling.
After leaving Port Angeles, he continued his studies at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), where he received a bachelor’s with honors in music and performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the university orchestra.
He majored in piano performance and pedagogy, studying with Cui Shi-Guang, and completed a double minor in violin, under Lee Sai-Hong Simon, and viola.
He was nominated by the head of the music department of HKBU to represent the department in the 2016 Yihai liujin Cultural Exchange Activities between China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Sin has won competitions in Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong Asia-Pacific Youth Piano Competition 2016 and Hong Kong (Asia) Youth Piano Competition 2015, First Class in the Open Class of 2014 Tchaikovsky and Kabalevsky Piano Competition of 14th Hong Kong (Asia Pacific) Piano Competition.
He was awarded second place in the third Hong Kong Youth Piano Competition and Hong Kong Music Competition for Young Pianists, third place in the seventh Hong Kong Students Open Music Competition and a number of prizes in Hong Kong Schools Music Festivals.
In the Beethoven Concerto and the Ravel Suite, Sin will be accompanied by Johnson, a recent transplant to Port Angeles. Johnson considers himself a bit of a late bloomer in music, as he didn’t stumble into his first music lesson until he was 13.
Since then, he has earned a bachelor’s degree in piano performance studying with Jane Abbott, with a minor in voice from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and has studied piano with Santos Ojeda at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, and composition with David Conte at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
He has played in master classes with Gary Graffman, Adele Marcus and Ilana Vered, and studied with Robert Schwartz in San Francisco and played for students of many voice teachers, including Carol Castel when visiting from the New York Opera Workshop.
He was a modern dance accompanist at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan and did freelance work during the 30 years he lived in San Francisco.
Johnson was a member of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, sang with and accompanied the UC Berkeley Alumni Chorus in many concerts, sang opera with the chorus of the San Francisco Lyric Opera and was the bass section leader at the Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco.
He moved to the Olympic Peninsula in 2016. He said he has found kindred musical spirits singing at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Port Angeles and the newly formed Port Angeles Symphony Chorus.
The concert is co-sponsored by the Peninsula College Music Department.
For more information, contact David Jones at djones@pencol.edu.
