President's Welcome  

April 18, 2025

Our 2025 competition, held on March 1, as a newly formatted concerto competition, was a success on several levels. As usual, our competitors were top notch, our new location - the Lee Theater in the Touhill Performing Arts Center was a perfect venue and gave our competition a more professional feel, and we were pleased with the community members who came to enjoy the competition. 

Our winners:

      Jun Hong Jiang, pianist  and  Yang Zhou, saxophonist

We look forward to hearing their performances in the 2025-2026 with our collaborating orchestras - the St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra and the University City Symphony Orchestra. We’re very pleased with these new partnerships.

Yang Zhou will play a saxophone concerto by American composer Robert Muczynski (1929-2010) with the St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra on Oct. 17.

Jun Hong Jiang will play Wolfgang Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 with the University City Symphony Orchestra on a date yet to be determined.

Our two winners will receive their monetary award ($4,000), travel stipend ($500)  and winner’s certificate at their orchestra performance.

At the competition, the judges also awarded the Jane Allen/.Betty Brighton Honorable Mention Award ($1,500) to pianist Wai Tung (Iris) Choi.

We enter into our new season with enthusiasm and commitment to our mission - presenting the gifted musicians of tomorrow. This Is possible through the contributions of donors like you. Please help us support these talented musicians by your concert attendance and gifts.

APS has been, and always will be committed to the complete inclusion of all races, genders, religions, and identities and will continue to promote talented and qualified musicians from all backgrounds.

We look forward to sharing beautiful music with you.

Lucinda Vantine
President
Artist Presentation Society