JURY PANEL 2024

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American orchestra and opera conductor Channing Yu is Music Director of the Mercury Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the national winner of the 2010 American Prize in Orchestral Conducting. He previously served as Artistic Director and Conductor of several orchestras throughout New England including the Lowell House Opera, the oldest opera company in New England, where he conducted over thirty fully staged performances with orchestra, including Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Puccini’s Turandot, Verdi’s Otello, and Puccini’s Tosca. 
He has served as an adjudicator for numerous competitions, including the James Pappoutsakis Memorial Flute Competition, Massachusetts American String Teachers Association Competition, and concerto competitions for the Brookline Symphony Orchestra and Concord Orchestra. He will serve as the chair of the jury panel for the 2024 Fou Ts’ong International Piano Competition. In addition to being a conductor, Channing is an avid performer of concertos and chamber music as a pianist and violinist.  

A true “cross-over artist” and Benny Goodman’s only student, Julian Milkis is an internationally acclaimed soloist, chamber musician, recitalist, and jazz clarinetist. 

He has been soloist with the Toronto Symphony, State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, Vivaldi Chamber Orchestra, Hamburg Mozarteum, Edmonton Symphony, L'Orchestre Nationale de Lyon, L'Orchestre Symphonique Française, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Divertissement Chamber Orchestra, Hermitage Chamber Orchestra, and Musica Viva. 

Mr. Milkis has performed chamber music with Valery Afanasiev, Yuri Bashmet, Gérard Causse, Alexander Kniazev, Misha Maisky, Alexander Rudin, the Borodin String Quartet,  the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the St. Petersburg String Quartet, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, and the St. Peter's Trio. A participant in prominent music festivals in France, Italy, Spain,  Russia, Turkey, New York, and Canada, Mr. Milkis has performed for radio and tele-vision broadcast throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia.  Since 1991, he has performed regularly by invitation at Sviatoslav's Richter's December Evenings chamber music festival in Moscow. Mr. Milkis has recorded for Warner Classics' Lontano, the French Suoni e Colori, Sony's Russian division CEAUX, Melodiya, and Russian Season.

Violinist Dana Pomerants-Mazurkevich, was an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Boston University College of Fine Arts. 

She studied violin at the Moscow Conservatory with the violin virtuoso, Professor David Oistrach, where she met her husband, the renowned violinist Yuri Mazurkevich and formed a Duo. As a soloist and with the Mazurkevich Duo, she has given numerous concerts throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, South America and the Far East. 

She participated in many international festivals, and serves as a juror of violin competitions. 

Dana taught at the Kiev Conservatory in the Ukraine until she left the Soviet union in 1975 and then joined the Faculty of Music at the University of Western Ontario in Canada until she moved to Boston in 1985 and joined the  Boston University College of Fine Arts, where she is much loved by students.

Bruce Brubaker, the Chair of the New England Conservatory Piano Department, has earned Bachelor of Music (1982), Master of Music (1983), and Doctor of Musical Arts (1992) degrees at The Juilliard School of Music. His doctoral document, “Pianist’s Life,” was a study of the social and cultural implications of the position of the concert pianist in contemporary America. As a concert pianist, Mr. Brubaker performed with orchestras in Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Atlanta, Seattle, and New York, and toured England, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Latin America, and Asia. Mr. Brubaker has premiered music by John Cage, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Jonathan Lloyd and gave first performances of Glass’s Six Etudes in London, Boston, and Manila. He made the world premiere recording of Edward Steuermann’s Piano Sonata for Vital Music (partnering it with music by Wagner and Brahms). Brubaker has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s, at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Hollywood Bowl, at Tanglewood, Antwerp’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, and at Finland’s Kuhmo Festival. Mr. Brubaker is the Artistic Director of SummerMusic, an annual chamber music festival in Iowa that he founded in 1994.  

Irina Morozova, is a faculty member of Mannes College of Music and the Special Music School Special Music School at Kaufman Center in NYC. She made her New York debut with a solo recital at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1996 after winning the Artists International Auditions. Since then Irina Morozova has given numerous solo recitals throughout the U.S., Germany, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Chile, China, and Australia. She has made solo appearances with the South Carolina Symphony, Irving Symphony Orchestra, and the New American Chamber Orchestra, among others. A passionate chamber music player, she has performed in ensembles with members of the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera orchestras. Her performances were broadcast on Russian radio and TV, KPAC (Texas), WFMT (Chicago), ABC (Australia), and BBC. Every summer Ms. Morozova teaches and performs at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College. Ms. Morozova was a top prize-winner of the New Orleans, the Frinna Awerbuch, and the San Antonio International Piano Competitions. Irina Morozova graduated from Rimsky-Korsakov College of Music and Saint-Petersburg Conservatory where her major teachers were Galina Orlovskaya and Vladimir Shakin. She later received Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Dr. Arkady Aronov.  

Gabor Viragh is a graduate of the Liszt Academy of Music Teacher Training Institute and the Bela Bartok Conservatory of Music in Budapest, Hungary. He also completed studies at Berklee College of Music on a professional scholarship and attended the Academie Musicale Ottorino Respighi Festival in Assisi, Italy. Mr. Viragh is a frequent guest clinician and lecturer at numerous colleges, universities and school systems throughout the United States. He has performed with numerous jazz artists such as Phil Wilson, Luis Bellson, Bob Berg, Joe Wilder, Claudio Roditi, Igor Buttman. Founder of the Hartt Jazz Trumpet Ensemble, Mr. Viragh actively performs throughout New England in various ensembles including the Steve Lord Big Band and the New England Jazz Orchestra. Mr. Viragh is an Associate Professor of Theory and Jazz Trumpet at The Hartt School of Music Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT.  

Laurence Lesser, President Emeritus of New England Conservatory, has enjoyed a multi-faceted career as concert artist, teacher and arts administrator. Mr. Lesser was a top prize winner in the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and a participant in the historic Heifetz-Piatigorsky concerts and recordings. Mr. Lesser has been soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the New Japan Philharmonic and other orchestras worldwide. He has performed under the batons of Ozawa, Rostropovich and Tilson Thomas, among others. As a chamber musician he has participated at the Casals, Marlboro, Spoleto, and Santa Fe festivals. He has served as jury member for numerous international competitions and in 1994 was chairman of the Tchaikovsky Competition (cello) in Moscow. Mr. Lesser, was President of NEC from 1983-1996, during which period America’s oldest independent school of music enjoyed an impressive rise in reputation. A high point during his tenure was the complete restoration in 1995 of the 1000-seat Jordan Hall, one of the world’s greatest acoustical spaces. Mr. Lesser came to NEC in 1974 as a member of the faculty, a position he still holds. He also teaches an international class of highly gifted cellists. Mr. Lesser plays a 1622 cello made by the brothers Amati in Cremona, Italy.