The Ruth P. Cogen Competition was established by the Board of Trustees of Levine Music in 1983 to honor Ruth Cogen, one of the school’s founders and its first chair of the Board of Trustees. 

The 2023 Competition took place on Sunday, February 12, 2023. Each participant prepared one movement from a concerto or solo piece intended for performance with an orchestra for the preliminary round. Students in the final round performed their performances with piano accompaniment. One grand prize winner was chosen from all the first-place division winners to play in an upcoming performance accompanied by orchestra.

Congratulations to all the participants, their teachers and families!

Student competition winners holding certificates

Awards

Congratulations to all the finalists and their extraordinary teachers!

Piano Intermediate Division

First place: Anastasia Fitenko (Martin Labazevitch)
Second place: Jenna Franke (Amanda Halstead)
Honorable mention: Bodhi Wang (Cecilia Cho)

Instrumental Intermediate Division

First place: Ishaan Banerjee (Maxfield Wollam-Fisher)
Second place: Andrew Mecham (Doug Rogers)
Honorable mention: Jasper Frelinghuysen (Leo Sushansky)

Piano Senior Division

First place: William Wu (Marina Alekseyeva)
Second place: Uma Das (Martin Labazevitch)
Honorable mention: William Hsieh (Martin Labazevitch) and Davanee Li (Wen-Yin Chan)

Instrumental Senior Division 

First place: Eileen Maloney Cunningham (Erin Durham)
Second place: Luis Nestares (Virgilio Joven)
Honorable mention: Mary Bailey (Kathleen Jacobi)

Grand Prize Winner

William Wu (Marina Alekseyeva)

Special thanks to: Aaron Percy, Recording Engineer; Lois Narvey and Maxfield Wollam-Fisher, competition organizers; Darya Gabay, Victor Shklyar, Irina Kats, Leah Frelinghuysen, and Katerina Zaitseva collaborative pianists, Audrey Andrist, Leander Bien, Lisa Calla, and Christian Tremblay competition judges, and Levine campus staff

This program has been made possible through the generous support of the Marinus and Minna B. Koster Foundation, Inc.