Performances + Events
Meet the Concert Artists
New England Conservatory’s esteemed concert artists represent the pinnacle of musical achievement, embodying the artistry, dedication, and excellence that defines NEC. Each of these distinguished musicians brings an extraordinary skill level and unique artistic voice to the global stage. They are redefining the future of music worldwide through the impact of their superior musicianship, meaningful artistic contributions, and deep dedication to their craft.
Meet the Concert Artists
Current Artists
Leonhard Baumgartner
’28 AD, Violin
Studio faculty: Miriam Fried
Born in Vienna in 2007, Leonhard Baumgartner gained international recognition after winning First Prize at the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition in 2024 and making his debut with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra under Eivind Aadland.
Baumgartner has received major awards, including First Prize at the Zhuhai International Mozart Competition (2022), First and Special Prizes at the Ilona Fehér International Violin Competition (2024), the Discovery Award at the International Classical Music Awards (2023), and First and Audience Prizes at the Osaka International Music Competition (2024). At age 15, he made his debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Wiener Konzerthaus and has since performed with leading orchestras across Europe.
Recent and upcoming highlights include performances of Brahms’s Violin Concerto at the Vienna Musikverein, Tchaikovsky’s, Bruch’s and Brahms’s double concertos in Salzburg, Oslo, and German cities, and a tour of Australia featuring Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
A dedicated chamber musician, Baumgartner has collaborated with such artists as Gidon Kremer and performs regularly with Alexander Warenberg and Nikola Meeuwsen, with whom he recorded an album for BR Radio featuring recordings of piano trios by Mendelssohn and Ravel. In 2024, he was selected to premiere and record a newly discovered work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for Deutsche Grammophon.
Baumgartner is mentored in the Stretton Excellence Mentorship Program under Vilde Frang and is supported by the Stretton Society and the Music Academy Liechtenstein. He studied with Dora Schwarzberg in Vienna and Ingolf Turban in Munich, and with R. Brandstätter in Graz, and has received artistic guidance from Leonidas Kavakos and Ana Chumachenco.
He performs on a 1683 Antonio Stradivari violin, the “ex Petherick,” generously on loan from a member of the Stretton Society, which is also supporting him through the Nina Gscheider and Florian Schwarz Scholarship.
Joshua Brown
’22, ’24 MM, ’26 AD, Violin
Studio faculty: Don Weilerstein
Photo Credit: Neda Navaee
Violinist Joshua Brown has been praised by audiences and critics worldwide for his “richness of sound, elegance of reading…commitment of every moment at the service of the work…” (La Libre). Recipient of a 2025 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Joshua gained international attention after winning the 2nd Prize and both Audience Awards at the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Other international competition successes include the 1st Prize at the inaugural 2023 Global Music Education International Violin Competition in Beijing, China, as well as the 1st Prize and Audience Award at the 2019 International Violin Competition of Leopold Mozart in Augsburg, Germany.
Joshua was first recognized for his debut performance with the Cleveland Orchestra and has gone on to perform regularly with orchestras around the world, including the Munich Radio Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Civic Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Belgian National Orchestra, and Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege, among others, continually garnering praise from critics. After his performance of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in Beijing with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, The Strad wrote, “Brown spun out silky, weightless phrases that seemed suspended in time;” in Belgium, Le Soir described him as “a real musician, of great sensitivity…with a real sense of nuance;” and the Indianapolis Star described his sound after a performance of Mozart’s 5th Violin Concerto as “addictive and shimmering, with emotions like dynamic colors that shifted beneath a clear, glassy surface.”
A passionate recitalist and chamber musician, Joshua has also appeared regularly in series such as Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, Festival Musiq3 in Brussels, the Tchaikovsky Festival in Moscow, the ProMusica series in Mexico, the Matinée Musicale series in Cincinnati, the Jupiter Chamber Players series in New York City, and the North Shore Chamber Music Festival in Chicago. Joshua received the Kronberg Academy’s 2023 Manfred Grommek Prize and has been named a Pirastro Artist, Yamaha Young Performing Artist, and Luminarts Fellow, among other awards.
Joshua is currently pursuing his Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory under Donald Weilerstein after also earning his Bachelor and Master of Music there. Before his time at NEC, Joshua studied with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago.
Joshua is grateful to be playing an outstanding Nicolo Amati violin from Cremona, circa 1635-1640, on extended loan through the generosity of the Mary B. Galvin Foundation and the efforts of the Stradivari Society, a division of Bein & Fushi, Inc. The Mary B. Galvin Foundation, Inc. and the Stradivari Society support the very highest level of string playing by loaning precious antique Italian instruments to artists of exceptional talent and ability.
Yunchan Lim
’26 AD, Piano
Studio faculty: Minsoo Sohn
Photo Credit: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco
Since becoming the youngest person to ever win gold at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at the age of 18 in 2022, Yunchan Lim’s ascent to international stardom has been meteoric. Marin Alsop expressed: “Yunchan is that rare artist who brings profound musicality and prodigious technique organically together.”
In the years following his Cliburn win, Yunchan made successful orchestral debuts with the New York, Los Angeles, Munich, and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras, as well as Chicago, Lucerne, BBC, Boston, and Tokyo Symphony orchestras among others. Recital appearances include performances at Carnegie Hall, Verbier Festival, the Wigmore Hall, Het Concertgebouw, and Suntory Hall, among other major stages.
Lim’s 2024/25 season highlights include orchestral debuts with Washington National Symphony, London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony, Berlin Radio Symphony, and WDR Symphony Orchestras, as well as returning to New York Philharmonic, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra de Paris. This season will also see his recital debut at the Kennedy Center, and a return to Carnegie Hall.
As an exclusive Decca Classics recording artist, Yunchan Lim’s acclaimed debut studio album, Chopin Études Opp.10 & 25 has gone double platinum in South Korea and topped the classical charts around the world.
His previous releases include Liszt’s Transcendental Études (Steinway & Sons); Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” (Universal Music Group); and his appearance on KBS’s 2020 Young Musicians of Korea album.
Born in Siheung, Korea, Yunchan Lim began piano lessons at age 7. He was accepted into the Korea National Institute for the Gifted in Arts at age 13, where he met his teacher and mentor, Minsoo Sohn. In 2019, aged only 15, he became the youngest person to win Korea’s IsangYun International Competition. Yunchan currently studies at the New England Conservatory of Music with his teacher Minsoo Sohn.
Paul Jang
’28 AD, Opera Studies
Studio faculty: Bradley Williams
South Korean baritone Paul Jang is quickly establishing himself as a compelling figure on the operatic stage, recognized for his dramatic versatility and powerful vocal presence. In July 2026, he will join the prestigious Merola Opera Program in San Francisco to perform the role of Harlekin in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos.
Since relocating to the United States, Jang has undertaken a diverse range of principal roles. In 2024, he garnered acclaim for his portrayal of Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and the titular character in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi at Yale Opera. That summer, he appeared as Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen at Music Academy of the West. Jang’s 2025 season included performances as lbn-Hakia in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Garrido in Massenet’s La Navarraise at Yale and covering the role of The Forester in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen (in Czech) for Des Moines Metro Opera. In early 2026, he performed the role of Marcello in La boheme at Yale.
Jang’s vocal excellence has been recognized at several of North America’s most prominent competitions. He was the United States Regional Winner of the 2024 International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition and a finalist at Chicago Lyric Opera’s 2024 Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center auditions. In 2025, he won fourth place at the Loren L. Zachary Society for the Performing Arts’ National Vocal Competition for Young Opera Singers.
Originally from Seoul, Jang holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Hanyang University, where he studied under baritone Seng-Hyoun Ko, and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, where he currently studies with the renowned vocal consultant, professor, and Yale Opera Director Gerald Martin Moore. Jang is expected to earn his Master of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music in 2026.
Clayton Stephenson
’23 NEC/Harvard, ’27 AD, Piano
Studio faculty: Wha Kyung Byun
Photo Credit: Neda Navaee
American pianist Clayton Stephenson’s love for music is immediately apparent in his joyous charisma onstage, expressive power, and natural ease at the instrument. Hailed for “extraordinary narrative and poetic gifts” and interpretations that are “fresh, incisive and characterfully alive” (Gramophone), he is committed to making an impact on the world through his music-making.
Stephenson grew up in New York City, started piano lessons at age 7, and the next year was accepted into The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program — a full scholarship program for disadvantaged students — where he lingered to watch student recitals and fell in love with music. Stephenson practiced on a synthesizer at home until he found an old upright piano on the street. For the next six years, that would be his practice piano, until, at age 17, he received a new piano from the Lang Lang Foundation.
Stephenson credits the generous support of community programs that provided him with musical inspiration and resources along the way. As he describes it, the “Third Street Music School jump-started my music education; the Young People’s Choir taught me phrasing and voicing; Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program introduced me to formal and rigorous piano training, which enabled me to get into Juilliard Pre-College; the Morningside Music Bridge validated my talent and elevated my self-confidence; the Boy’s Club of New York exposed me to jazz; and the Lang Lang Foundation brought me to stages worldwide and transformed me from a piano student to a young artist.”
Recent seasons have included concerto performances with the Houston, North Carolina, Virginia, and Cincinnati symphonies; festival appearances at Grand Teton, Grant Park, and Tippet Rise; recitals at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the 92nd Street Y in New York City; and gala performances with the New York and Las Vegas philharmonics. He served as the 2024-25 artist-in-residence at the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of his 2025-26 season include performances with the Cincinnati Philadelphia, and Sarasota orchestras, the symphonies of Nashville and Portland, Maine, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. He will give recitals at the Jacobins Festival (Toulouse, France), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), and Crystal Bridges Museum (Arkansas) and will conclude his season in spring 2026 on tour with the Stuttgart Philharmonic in Italy.
Stephenson graduated from the Harvard/New England Conservatory dual degree program in spring 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard and a Master of Music degree in piano performance from NEC, where he studied with Wha Kyung Byun. In addition to being the first Black finalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2024, won the inaugural Nina Simone Piano Competition that year, and received the Sphinx Organization’s Sphinx Medal of Excellence in 2025.
Zitong Wang
’24 MM, ’26 GD, ’28 AD, Piano
Studio faculty: Dang Thai Son
Zitong Wang has captivated audiences with her authenticity, bravura, and sensitivity, most notably at the 19th Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition (2025), where she was awarded the Bronze Medal and the Krystian Zimerman Award for the Best Performance of a Sonata.
She has appeared at such major venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, Warsaw
Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Seoul Arts Center, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. As a concerto soloist, she has performed with such leading orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, and New Jersey Symphony.
An active chamber musician, Wang has performed with such artists as David Shifrin and Roberto Díaz and was selected as a Protégé Project Artist at Chamber Music Northwest. She is currently pursuing her graduate studies with Dang Thai Son at New England Conservatory, after studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Meng-Chieh Liu and the late Eleanor Sokoloff, and at the Central Conservatory of Music.
Chris Ryan Williams
’28 AD, Contemporary Musical Arts
Chris Ryan Williams is an artist and musician whose work unfolds through electroacoustic composition and performance installation. His EP Live earned praise from Jazz Right Now and The Quietus for its “dazzling collaged pieces that ricochet between improvised passages and written material” (Peter Margasak, The Quietus). His debut LP, Odu: Vibration II, praised by Pitchfork and named one of NPR’s Best New Albums, reimagines a journey through Plato’s Cave. Williams’s work has been performed and presented extensively across the United States and Europe, including at the Venice Biennale, Roulette Intermedium, Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Royal Danish Playhouse, National Sawdust, and Performa Biennial. He has received commissions from the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, WasteLAnd, the American Composers Forum, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.
Collaborative exchange forms a vital part of Williams’s practice. He has worked with such creators as Ralph Lemon, Eyvind Kang, Patrick Shiroishi, Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Imani Dennison, Wendy Eisenberg, Luke Stewart, Pink Siifu, and Marjani Forte-Saunders. Williams also maintains an ongoing collaboration with cellist Lester St. Louis under the moniker HxH, a duo described by Piotr Orlov (Pioneer Works) as having “embraced the challenge of bringing laptop instrumentalism into a wide personal world by making sounds that are at once art-minded and accessible, and true to the tenets of spontaneous composition and social music.”
Dani Jingdan Zhang
’26 AD, Opera Studies
Studio faculty: Bradley Williams
Photo Credit: Neda Navaee
Dani Jingdan Zhang is a Hong Kong soprano, born in Shenzhen. She made her debut with Opera Hong Kong as Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale at Hong Kong City Hall, followed by an acclaimed performance as Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre. Her other operatic roles include Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Poppea (Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea), Ruth Baldwin (Later the Same Evening), Ilia (Idomeneo), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), and Nedda (I Pagliacci). She has also performed scenes as Nannetta (Falstaff), Micaëla (Carmen), Euridice (Orfeo ed Euridice), and Cunegonde (Candide). She recently sang Agnes in Ulysses Kay’s Frederick Douglass with Odyssey Opera and Valencienne in Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow with Opera Hong Kong. In the upcoming season, she is an Apprentice Artist at Santa Fe Opera and an Emerging Artist at Boston Lyric Opera.
As a concert soloist, she made her debut under the baton of Yu Long with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil), singing the soprano solo in Fauré’s Requiem at HKU MUSE. During the HK Phil’s 50th anniversary season, she was invited back to perform in Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Sylvia Chang and Lio Kuokman, and later appeared as soprano soloist in Poulenc’s Gloria with Chloé Dufresne. In addition, Dani performed Bach’s Mass in B minor in collaboration with the Hong Kong Bach Choir conducted by Jerome Hoberman. In Macao, she performed Bach’s Easter Oratorio and excerpts from Handel’s Messiah with the Macao Orchestra and Learners Chorus. She also featured in the Opera Hong Kong 20th Anniversary Gala Concert, and performed soprano solo in Carmina Burana with the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra under Shinik Hahm at the Sichuan Cultural and Arts Center. At NEC, Zhang appeared as soprano soloist in the Philharmonia’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 under Hugh Wolff. Most recently, she sang the soprano solo in Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with Santa Cruz Symphony under Daniel Stewart.
Dani has been recognized in both international and national competitions. She is a winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition (Boston District) and First Prize winner of the Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music (Hong Kong), the Finalist Award at the 2022 Donizetti International Singing Competition (Italy), the Gold Award at the 2023 PREMIA International Young Artists Music Festival Competition, which also invited her to perform at the Prizewinners Gala Concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. A star of Radio Television Hong Kong’s 2019 Young Music Makers, she has been featured in numerous television and radio productions, including The Sound of Art, The GBA Concert Hall, and the interview series Musicians’ Terrace. As an emerging artist, she performed at the Beijing Great Wall Cultural Festival and the Shenzhen Cultural Center. Dani is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma in Opera Studies at NEC under the tutelage of Professor Bradley Williams. She graduated with distinction from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts under Soprano Nancy Yuen.
