Nita Qiu
piano
Nita Qiu, whose April 2023 performances with the Minnesota Orchestra are the result of her first-place win in the 2019 YPSCA Young People’s Concerto Competition—an engagement delayed due to the pandemic—is a 20-year-old junior attending Yale University majoring in Computer Science and Psychology. She graduated from Trinity School at River Ridge in 2020 and studied piano from 2007 to 2020 with Dr. Joseph Zins of Crocus Hill Studios in Saint Paul. Highlights of her piano career include being named winner in the 2020 National YoungArts Foundation in Classical Music/Piano; being named a national winner of the distinguished Career Development Grant from the Chopin Foundation of the United States in 2019 for the third consecutive year; and winning first place in the 2019 Aloha International Piano Competition and Festival in Honolulu. She has also appeared as guest artist on the prestigious National Public Radio program “From the Top” and was a winner of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship Award in conjunction with the program; was a 2016-2017 Minnesota Public Radio Varsity Showcase Young Artist; and was a National Finalist in the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) National Young Artist Competition (Junior Category) in Las Vegas.