NEW YORK, NY.- The Juilliard School announced that pianists Michael Brown and Eric Zuber are winners of the 2009 Gina Bachauer Piano Competition at Juilliard. This is Mr. Brown’s second time winning the Bachauer Competition. Both pianists will perform a concert on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 9 PM in Paul Hall at Juilliard (155 West 65th Street), which will be broadcast live over WQXR, 96.3 FM. The concert opens the 32nd season of The McGraw-Hill Companies’ Young Artists Showcase with host Robert Sherman.

The Bachauer competition awards young artists free tuition scholarships to Juilliard. Allowing them to continue to improve their talents with some of the best piano teachers in the world. Recent Bachauer winners include Michael Bukhman, William Chen, Ran Dank, Yoonjung Han, Ching-Wen Hsiao, Naomi Kudo, Soyeon Lee, Adam Neiman, Ian Parker, Edward Robie, Konstantin Soukhovetski, Chuan Qin, Xun Wang, Orion Weiss, and Xiang Zou.

A native of Long Island, Michael Brown is currently a double major at Juilliard in piano and composition and studies with Jerome Lowenthal and Samuel Adler. He is a two-time winner of the Gina Bachauer Competition and the recipient of the Mieczyslaw Munz Prize at Juilliard. He also has won top prizes in the Friday Woodmere Music Club’s Young Artists and the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin competitions. Concerto appearances include Mozart with the Long Island Philharmonic, Beethoven with the Y Symphonic Orchestra, and Gershwin with the Manhattan School of Music Philharmonic. He has given recitals at the Caramoor Music Festival, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, New York Ethical Culture Society, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alice Tully Hall, and at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Avery Fisher Hall. As a composer, Mr. Brown’s works have been performed internationally, and have been heard on WQXR and NPR, among other radio stations. He is the recipient of the 2009 Palmer-Dixon Prize from Juilliard and has won top awards in ASCAP’s Young Composer Awards. He was the 2008 composer-in-residence for Pianofest and was commissioned to write a two-piano piece to celebrate their 20th season. He has attended the Steans Institute at Ravinia, Pianofest in the Hamptons, the Beijing International Music Festival, and the Tanglewood Institute. He is the co-creator of “New Paths, New Music,” an organization created in an effort to promote new music by student composers throughout the New York City area.

Eric Zuber begins his master of music degree this fall at Juilliard, studying with Robert McDonald. He holds a bachelor’s degree and an artists diploma from the Peabody Conservatory, where he worked with Boris Slutsky. He received a performance diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Leon Fleisher and Claude Frank. He was a prize winner in the 2009 Dublin International Piano Competition, the 2008 Sydney International Piano Competition, the 2008 Seoul International Piano Competition, and winner of the 2007 Hilton Head International Piano Competition. He has performed in the Sydney Opera House, the Concert Hall of the Seoul Arts Center, the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, Shriver Hall, and Strathmore Hall in Washington, D.C. He appeared on the Rising Star Recital Series for the Gilmore Foundation. As a soloist, Mr. Zuber has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony, RTE National Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Korean Symphony, South Bend Symphony, Peabody Symphony, Aspen Concert Orchestra, Hilton Head Symphony, and the New Millenium Festival Orchestra in Gijon, Spain, among others. He has had the opportunity to work with some of the most renowned professors in the world, including John Perry and Yoheved Kaplinsky (Susan W. Rose Chair of the Piano Department at Juilliard) at the Aspen Music Festival, Jerome Lowenthal (Juilliard faculty member) at the Music Academy of the West, Julian Martin at the New Millenium Piano Festival, and Arie Vardi at the Bowdoin Music Festival.