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Staff report
Featured photo: Courtesy of Anastasia Peters
Aja Zou, a 15-year-old pianist from San Juan Capistrano, will play at Carnegie Hall in New York City in summer 2023. Aja was recently named the second-prize winner of the 2022 American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition.
“Aja not only brings a wealth of talent at such a young age, but also a unique way of presenting music to her audience,” said Sir András Schiff, British classical pianist and Grammy Award winner. “She is very much her own artist with superior technique and beautiful control of her instrument.”
The exact date for her Carnegie Hall performance is to be determined.
Aja—who is also currently researching a drug-response prediction model using applied mathematics and genomics data—has participated in numerous concerts and competitions in her piano career on the regional, national, and international levels, said Austin Litovsky, her research mentor and a close friend.
The wunderkind has also finished in second place in the 2021 OPUS Music Competition, qualifying Aja to represent her state to compete as a finalist in the national round in 2022.
“She received third place in the 2021 Charleston International Music Competition of Romantic Music,” Litovsky said. “Additionally, she has been chosen as a finalist last year for the King’s Peak International Music Competition.”
Aja began studying the piano when she was 6 years old, studies under Dr. Seonghyang Kim, and attends Sage Hill School in Newport Beach.
