August 4, 2005--Ruoyo Huang, a 16-year-old pianist from Sichuan, China, is the first-prize winner of the 11th Annual Oberlin International Piano Competition, held Saturday evening, July 30, in the Conservatory's Warner Concert Hall. He received a cash award of $4,000 as well as the Audience Favorite Award of $100.

Second prize and $1,500 went to Korean-born Sun-A Park, 17, of Little Ferry, New Jersey. The third-place award of $1,000 went to Fangzhou Feng, 15, of Shenyang, China. Hanmo Qian, 18, of Sichuan, China, won the fourth place prize of $500. Chinese-born Vicki Ning Wang, 18, of Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, won the fifth-place prize of $200.

Ruoyo Huang secured his first-place and audience- favorite prizes by performing Fantaise, Op. 49 by Frédéric Chopin and the first movements of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Sonata, K. 576, Igor Stravinsky's Petrouchka, and Robert Schumann's Fantaise, Op. 17. Huang, who began studying piano at the age of four, is now a student of Professor Zheng Daxin at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music.

Second-place winner Sun-A Park performed Chopin's Étude Op. 25, No. 7, Ludwig van Beethoven's Sonata Op. 2, No.3, Sergei Prokoviev's Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83, and Johannes Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Book II, Op. 35.

Fangzhou Feng, who came in third, played Franz Joseph Haydn's Sonata in E Major, Hob. IVI, 31; the number 4, 15, 16, 17, and 24 Preludes, Op. 28, by Chopin as well as his études, Op. 10, No. 2, and Op. 25, No. 7; and the first movement of Prokoviev's Sonata No. 6, Op. 82.

The fourth-prize winner, Hanmo Qian, performed works by Mozart, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Liszt. Vicki Ning Wang, who came in fifth, played works by Beethoven and Alberto Ginastera.

As is the competition's protocol, the finalists are told only moments before walking onstage what pieces from their repertoire they are to play for the judges.

Judges for the finals round were Dean of the Conservatory David H. Stull, Oberlin Professor of Piano Sanford Margolis, Professor Matti Raekallio of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, and Professor Mykola Suk of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

All but one of the finalists performed on Oberlin's Hannan Hamburg Steinway; Ruoyo Huang chose the New York Steinway.

The finals round was broadcast live on 104.9 WCLV, northeast Ohio's classical music station, and simulcast on the Internet at wclv.com thanks to the sponsorship of the Riverside Company, a leading private equity firm specializing in premier companies. The president of WCLV, Robert Conrad, served as master of ceremonies for the evening.

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.