August 4, 2005--Pianist Spencer Myer, a 2000 graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College, is having a very good summer in his home state.

The 26-year-old, who studied at Oberlin with Professor of Piano Peter Takács and hails from North Ridgeville, won the silver medal and $5,000 in July at the 2005 World Piano Competition, held at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinnati. On August 1, he advanced to the semifinals of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, which holds the distinction of offering the largest first-prize award in the world--$50,000--for a solo piano competition. More information is available at http://clevelandpiano.org .

As one of eight semifinalists, Myer will perform for the judges today at 7 p.m. at the Cleveland Playhouse. His one-hour program will feature Debussy's Images, Book II, Albeniz's Iberia, Book II, and Barber's Sonata, Op. 26.

Myer, who received his doctor of musical arts degree from Stony Brook University in New York in June, will be the only contestant representing the United States in the 2005 Busoni International Piano Competition, to be held in Bolzano, Italy, August 24 - September 3. He is also one of five finalists in the American Pianists Association's 2006 Classical Fellowship Awards Competition, which takes place in various Indianapolis venues in late 2005 and early 2006.

Myer is not the only recent Conservatory graduate to achieve competition success this summer. Canadian Scott Meek, who earned Oberlin degrees in piano performance and East Asian Studies in May, joined Myer on the winners' platform in Cincinnati, taking the bronze medal and $3,000 in last month's World Piano Competition. He was a piano student of Associate Professor of Piano Alvin Chow and is from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Another student of Peter Takács, Mudi Han, won first prize and $2,500 in the Beethoven Club's 11th Biennial International Beethoven Piano Sonata Competition, held in May at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. At 22, Han was the youngest of the seven finalists in the competition. Born in Wuhan, China, he will be a senior at Oberlin this fall. Ivan Seng, a 1999 graduate of Oberlin, placed fourth in this competition.

Anastasia Dedik, an artist diploma student of Professor of Piano Sedmara Rutstein, won first prize in the advanced category at the Sixth Annual International Russian Music Piano Competition, held in San Jose, California, in May. Jingwen Tu, a May graduate of the Conservatory and another Rutstein student, won second prize in the college piano division at the Lima Orchestra Young Artists' Competition, held at Ohio State University's Lima campus in April.       

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865 and situated within the intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. Renowned internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber and pronounced a "national treasure" by the Washington Post, Oberlin's alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all aspects of the serious music world. Its students and alumni have won top prizes in numerous international piano competitions, including the Van Cliburn, the Fryderyk Chopin, the Queen Elisabeth, the Arthur Rubinstein, the Walter W. Naumberg, the Unisa International Piano Competition (South Africa), the American Pianists Association Classical Fellowship competition, the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition, and the Busoni Competition. The Conservatory's collection of 1,700 period and modern musical instruments includes 199 Steinway grand pianos. Oberlin, an All-Steinway School, is Steinway & Sons oldest continuous client; their relationship dates back more than 125 years.