Summer Programs
Oberlin International Adult Amateur Piano Competition & Festival
OBERLIN INTERNATIONAL ADULT AMATEUR PIANO COMPETITION & FESTIVAL
Thursday, July 23 - Thursday, July 30, 2026
Competition – Masterclasses – Performances
This program is open to all top-level amateur pianists, ages 30 and up to come together from all walks of life to begin the week at Severance Hall to enjoy the Cooper Piano Competition Concerto Finals with the Cleveland orchestra, then dive right into the Competition and Festival to perform, compete and learn with other pianists like yourself!
Applicants must be amateur pianists of any profession, who do not perform or teach piano music for their primary income or financial benefit, and must not have performed in any professional piano competition in the past ten years.
Applicants must be at least 30 years old by the time of the Competition.
Prizes*
First Prize: $3,000, and performance opportunity at Oberlin, TBD
Second Prize: $1,000
Third Prize: $500
*The jury reserves the right to withhold an award; in the event of a tie, the prize money of the prize won and that of the next prize(s) in the ranking will be added up and distributed equally.
2025 First Prize Winner
Jonathan Shih will perform a concert of works by Bach, Chopin, Scriabin, Messiaen, Still, and Dutilleux at this year’s Festival!Jonathan is a Seattle-based product designer at a small startup. He began his piano studies with various Chicago-area teachers (most notably Emilio del Rosario), and continued briefly at Northwestern University under James Giles before a minor hand injury and recession-induced career introspection led him to forgo piano for an engineering degree. After a decade-long hiatus due to work travel, he resumed playing and now studies with Peter Mack. Jonathan has performed live on 98.7 WFMT and was a finalist in the 2024 WIPAC competition, earning special awards for “Best Classical Performance” and “Most Imaginative Programming.” Outside of music, he enjoys cooking, traveling, and collecting other hobbies.
This Festival offers the choice to perform in the Competition. Performing in the Competition is not obligatory, and the Competition is not separate from, but part of the Festival. All Competitors and Festival attendees pay the same program fee.
Those taking part in the competition are also invited to perform in a master class and a recital in addition to the competition. Non-competing festival participants will have the opportunity to perform in the festival concert, a master class and a recital.
Faculty listed below are also the jury for the competition.
APPLICATION DEADLINES: MARCH 15 and MAY 1
PRIORITY APPLICATION DEADLINE: MARCH 15
Response emails including the program informational website will be sent after this deadline.
FINAL APPLICATION DEADLINE, IF SPACE PERMITS: MAY 1
Response emails including the program informational website will be sent after this deadline.
PROGRAM PAYMENT DUE: MAY 15
Robert Shannon, Director
Robert Shannon has presented solo recitals, ensemble concerts, and master classes throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia. His repertoire ranges from Bach to Adams. He has been especially noted for his penetrating interpretations of recent American music.
He has commissioned and premiered works by John Harbison, Charles Wuorinen, Carla Bley, and Steven Dembski, among others. Shannon’s recordings of sonatas by Charles Ives on Bridge Records have received rave reviews worldwide. His recordings of Ives’ complete works for violin and piano, and works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb are also available on Bridge Records.
Shannon has performed at the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Festival Tibor Varga in Switzerland, the Sacramento Festival of American Music, and as guest artist with the Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players. In recent seasons, he has appeared in London, Paris, Glasgow, Rome, Stuttgart, New York, San Francisco, Colombia (South America), and Taiwan.
He is professor of piano at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, director of the Division of Keyboard Studies, and director and founder of the Cooper International Competition for Piano. He joined the Oberlin faculty in 1976.
Ernest Barretta
Recognized, at a young age, as a pianist “in command of his instrument and the music at every intricate turn ... his technical expertise, stage presence and sensitivity to the music are truly inspiring in so youthful a pianist” (McKeesport Daily News), American pianist Ernest Barretta continues to enjoy success as both soloist and chamber musician. He has performed extensively throughout the United States and abroad, as soloist with the St. Petersburg Symphony in St. Petersburg, Russia, the National Gallery Orchestra of Washington, D.C. and the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra. Sought after for both his performances of, and thoughts about, music, he has appeared in interviews and live performances at XM Radio studios, on WBJC in Baltimore and WFLN in Philadelphia. He has recorded contemporary, chamber and solo repertoire on multiple labels, and his solo recording of works by Bach, Beethoven, and Musorgsky on the MRC label has earned critical acclaim. As a collaborative artist, Barretta has performed and recorded with many internationally recognized musicians, and is a member of the Allegheny Ensemble and the Musa Amici trio. He twice appeared as soloist at the Seoul Summer Music Festival and Academy in South Korea, where he also served as a member of the piano faculty; he has also performed and given masterclasses at numerous music festivals in China and Tawain. In addition, he has served as a juror at international piano competitions in New York, China, and Taiwan.
Dr. Barretta additionally devotes a great deal of his time to teaching; the rewarding task of working with emerging talent is an important part of his life as a musician. He is currently on the piano faculty of the Juilliard School of Music, pre-college division, having served previously on the piano faculties of The Peabody Conservatory and Towson University. He also enjoys working as conductor and composer, and is Music Director of the several ensembles that make up the music program at St. Joseph, Fullerton, in Baltimore, MD.
Early studies of both piano and organ in the Pittsburgh, PA area led to top prizes in several local competitions, including those of the Pittsburgh Concert Society and the Pittsburgh Musician’s Club. He earned his BM in Piano Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory, studying with Sanford Margolis, MM from the University of the Arts and DMA from the Peabody Conservatory – studying with Yoheved Kaplinsky at both schools. He received several honors and distinctions along the way, such as the Rudolph Serkin Prize (Oberlin), the Strine Award (U of Arts) and the Zierler Award (Peabody). Currently, Dr. Barretta resides in the Baltimore area with his wife, Cynthia, and their daughter.
Carl Cranmer
Carl Cranmer made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of nine. Since then he has given solo recitals in Europe, Asia, and North America, and he has performed in concert with the Royal Philharmonic of England, the Gulbenkian Orquesta of Portugal, and the Juilliard Orchestra, among others. In addition to his study in the United States, he also studied at the Sommerakademie at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria where he was under the tutelage of Karlheinz Kammerling, Jacob Lateiner, and Hans Graf.
Cranmer has performed in important national and international venues including Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie-Weill Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Merkin Hall in New York; in the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; and in the Academy of Music and the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater in Philadelphia. His performances have been televised in Madrid, Tokyo, Missouri, and Philadelphia, and his performances have been aired on NPR and radio stations in New York, Chicago, Montréal, Boston, and Atlanta. In addition to performances in Austria, France, England and Japan, he has had the opportunity to give two solo concert tours of Spain. In 2002, he was invited to perform a solo recital sponsored by the American and Spanish Embassies in Panama City, Panama.
Cranmer also performs a wide variety of chamber music. He has performed in recital with Naumburg Competition winner Axel Strauss in Boston, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Seattle. In 2004, their performance in Steinway Hall in New York City was broadcast by NHK on public television stations in Taiwan, Korea and Japan. Cranmer has also collaborated with the Grammy-winning Takács Quartet, baritone Randall Scarlata, tenor Robert White, and violinist Akiko Suwanai. He has performed in the summers at Tanglewood, Pianofest in the Hamptons, and the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival.
Cranmer can be heard in recordings of Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Piano with the Russian Philharmonia led by maestro Ovidiu Marinescu; "Soirée," a collection of solo works by Poulenc, Chopin, Fauré, Granados, Liszt, and Barber; and in collaboration with violinist Sylvia Ahramjian in music of Saint-Saëns, Beethoven, and others, titled "Crossroads."
Cranmer is on the faculty of West Chester University and is a member of the Music Teachers National Association. He gives numerous master classes in the Philadelphia area and maintains a private piano studio.
Haewon Song
Pianist Haewon Song is a member of the acclaimed Oberlin Trio. An internationally recognized artist and pedagogue, Song has performed and taught at top venues throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her frequent appearances include concerto performances with the KBS Orchestra in Seoul, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the
Cleveland Chamber Symphony, and Oberlin Conservatory ensembles.
Song has appeared at numerous international festivals, among them Mexico’s Cervantino Festival, the All-American Music Festival in Stuttgart, Grand Teton Music Festival, Aria Festival, Canada’s Institute of Musical Arts, Festival de Nice in France, the Oberlin Summer Piano Festival, and the Tonghai Music Festival in Taiwan. In 2005, Song toured Korea as a member of the Oberlin Piano Quartet, which included celebrated performances in Daejun and at the Kumho Concert Hall in Seoul.
A native of South Korea, Song attended the Toho School in Tokyo, Peabody Preparatory School, and the Juilliard School, where her major teachers were Julian Martin, Martin Canin, and Shuku Iwasaki. She has taught at Tunghai University in Taiwan and Kyung Won University in Seoul, and has been a member of the Oberlin piano department since 1991. Throughout her tenure at Oberlin, her students have won major prizes in both national and international competitions, including MTNA Nationals, Wideman, Kingsville, Oberlin International Piano, Walgreen, World, and Corpus Christi, and they regularly appear with significant orchestras across the United States and Asia.