19. Sophie Shan

Sophie Shan was born in Brisbane, Australia in 2004 and started learning the piano at age 5. She currently studies under the tutelage of Natasha Vlassenko at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music under the Senior Piano Young Conservatorium Program, where she has been since she was 12 years old.

In her second year of the Young Conservatorium program, Sophie was awarded the joint prize winner of the Nora Baird Bursary at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. In addition, in 2017, she was a finalist for the R.T. Jeffries Bursary, a bursary for the “most promising student in the School for the advancement of music” at her high school - Brisbane Girls Grammar School - and was awarded the bursary in 2018 and 2019. She has also been invited to participate in masterclasses by world renowned pianists, including Michico Tokayama and Alexander Strukov.

In 2019, she placed first at the Brisbane International Youth Music Festival for musicians under 25 years of age. She was subsequently selected as one of three of the grand finalists to be given an invitation to perform in New York. As a result, in January 2020, she performed as a guest at the Crescendo International Music Competition Award Recipient’s Concert at Carnegie Hall, New York.