Sixty-fifth Annual Conference
November 6 – November 8, 2025
Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC
South Carolina MTNA Performance Competitions Will Be Live.
Detailed registration information will be available soon.
Guest Artist
HieYon Choi
One of the most sought-after pianists of her generation, South Korean pianist HieYon Choi first appeared on the international piano music scene when she won prizes at high-profile competitions such as Kapell, Epinal, Busoni and Viotti. HieYon Choi has been since performing with prestigious orchestras of Europe, US and Korea such as das Rundfunkorchester Berlin, the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington DC), the Northern Sinfonia, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Korean Broadcast Symphony Orchestra and appears as a soloist in festivals and concert series.
A milestone of Choi’s performing career was the four-year long cycle of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas at the Kumho Art Hall in Seoul. For this series she received the Arts Award of the year 2005 by the Korean Arts & Cultural Association. Later she completed another Beethoven cycle with all piano trios, violin sonatas and works for cello and piano. Her second cycle of all Beethoven piano sonatas took place in various venues in Korea, Germany and the US until 2018. Choi‘s other series of performances include ones that explored Brahms and his associates and that of French school. She has been collaborating with renowned musicians such as Truls Mørk, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Peter Stumph, Mark Kosower, Romain Guyot, Stephan Dohr, Ulf Wallin, Mikyung Lee, Soovin Kim.
Alongside the canon of the classical piano literature such as Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Debussy, Music of 20 th & 21 st century forms another important part of Choi’s career. A strong advocate of the new music, she was the inaugural Artist-in-Residence of Tong-Yeong International Music festival. She performed works of Olivier Messiaen, György Kurtag, Sofia Gubaidulina, York Höller, Unsuk Chin, Suhki Kang a. o. with the Seoul Philharmonic.
Recently Choi completed her long journey of recording entire Beethoven piano sonatas. Her first two Beethoven albums were released in 2018 and in 2021 retrospectively by Decca Korea and UMG and they were highly noted by German and Korean magazine/papers. The entire set of Beethoven piano sonatas are to be released in the upcoming year. Her other recordings include
In 2023/24 HieYon Choi joined the piano faculty at Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, after having served for 24 years as tenured piano professor at Seoul National University in Korea. Choi has been giving numerous master classes worldwide; the Guildhall School in London, Ecole Normale in Paris, Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Hochschule Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Düsseldorf in Germany, Music School of Manhattan, Cincinnati, Michigan in the US, Performing Arts Hong-Kong, China and in summer festivals in Italy, France, Korea and in the US. Choi also serves as a jury member at international competitions such as Beethoven, Maj Lind, Pozzoli, Epinal and Orléans.
Born in Inchon, South Korea, Choi gave her debut concert at the age of 6 with the Incheon Philharmonic Orchestra. She won all four most coveted competitions in Korea (Dong-A, Choong-Ang, Korea Times, Ehwa-KyungHyang) under the early tutelage of Prof. Joong-Won Koh and moved to Germany at the age of 18 to study with Prof. Klaus Hellwig at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. The late Prof. Hans Leygraf at the same institute and the late Prof. György Sebök at Indiana University were further source of inspiration to her.
Guest Clinician
Sophia Gilmson
Sophia Gilmson, Russian-born pianist, has concertized extensively in Europe and the United States to a high critical acclaim. Carl Cunningham of The Houston Post described Gilmson’s playing as a “…brilliant, driving performance.” Michael Huebner, of the Austin American-Statesman, referred to her performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations as “one of the most refreshing and thought-provoking performances this season.” In 2001, she was awarded the prestigious Mount Everest Award by the Austin Critics Table for this performance, in which she played the Goldberg Variations on harpsichord and piano in the same evening. Michael Barnes, chief arts critic of the Austin American-Statesman at that time, ranked this performance as one of the top ten arts events of 2001, calling it “unforgettable”. In the celebration of its 20th anniversary, Austin’s Performing Arts Center included this concert in the list of twenty most memorable programs of its history, one per year. Later, her studio recording of this performance received a Silver Medal from the Global Music Award. “I can now say that Sophia Gilmson has gone where no one has gone before…” Fanfare Magazine She is a recipient of numerous awards, among which are the First Prize in the Young Artists Competition in New York City, followed by a recital in Carnegie Hall, and the Piano International Recording Competition. Radio Leningrad, Radio Vatican, WQXR and WNYC in New York City, among others, broadcasted her performances.
Sophia Gilmson is a dedicated educator. Her students have won major prizes on state, national, and international levels. Her unique pedagogical skills are universally recognized at both pre-college and collegiate levels.
She has received an array of excellence in teaching awards, including 2001 Collegiate Teaching Achievement Award of Texas. In 2023 she was inducted to the Steinway Teacher Hall of Fame. Sophia Gilmson is the co-founder of both Houston and Austin Young Artists Concerts, the programs designed for musically gifted children. Sophia has been an artistic director for both programs for twenty years since its inception in 1987 to 2007.
She presented papers, masterclasses and lectures at the World Piano Pedagogy and Music Teachers National Association Conferences as well as various international music festivals and conferences. She has been published in Keyboard Companion, official journal of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy.
Sophia Gilmson graduated cum laude from the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Conservatory in Russia, where she studied with a legendary Russian pianist Professor Vitaly Margulis. She is currently a Professor Emerita at the University of Texas Butler School of Music.
