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 2024 Competition took place on Sunday, February 18, 2024. 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 with piano accompaniment. One grand prize winner was chosen from all the first-place division winners to play in an upcoming performance accompanied by an orchestra.
Congratulations to all the participants, their teachers, and their families!
Awards
Congratulations to all the finalists and their extraordinary teachers!
Piano Intermediate Division
First place: Sam Brose (student of Jamila Tekalli Hanner)
Second place: Minjae Jeon (student of Jinha Park)
Honorable mention: Anna Lundman (student of Cecilia Cho)
Instrumental Intermediate Division
First place: Zoie Chu (student of Christina Gullans)
Second place: Vienne Wong (student of Henry Stubbs)
Honorable mention: Chloe Robertson (student of Kenneth Stilwell)
Honorable mention: Anisha Veeraraghavan (student of Will Hurd)
Piano Senior Division
First place: Uma Das (student of Martin Labazevitch)
Second place: Jessica Wang (student of Sam Post)
Second place: Alexandra Vinokurov (student of Jinha Park)
Honorable mention: Davanee Li (student of Wen-Yin Chan)
Instrumental Senior Division
First place: Ishaan Banerjee (student of Maxfield Wollam-Fisher)
Second place: Benjamin Whiting-Eisemann (student of Patrick LeStrange)
Honorable mention: Ellie Chen (student of Patrick LeStrange)
Piano Grand Prize Winner
Sam Brose (student of Jamila Tekalli Hanner)
Instrumental Grand Prize Winner
Ishaan Banerjee (student of Maxfield Wollam-Fisher)
Special thanks to: Aaron Percy, Recording Engineer; Maxfield Wollam-Fisher, competition organizer; Darya Gabay, Irina Kats, Eunice Kim, Leah Frelinghuysen, and Jinha Park, collaborative pianists, Emily Baltzer, Hai Jin, Chris Fiore, Troy King, and Ellen Dooley, 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.