Photo courtesy of the Cliburn Competition.
On Saturday, June 7, 2025, Harvard University Department of Music Alumnus Aristo Sham won First Prize at the prestigious Van Cliburn Piano Competition. Sham, who graduate from the Harvard-NEC dual degree program, was also awarded the Carla and Kelly Thompson Audience Award.
The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is widely considered “one of the most prestigious contests in classical music” (The New York Times, June 2022). From its origins in 1962 through today, it has remained dedicated to sharing music with the largest international audience possible and to launching the careers of its winners. The 2025 edition builds on that rich foundation and the historic success of the 2022 edition, which has become one of the most-watched classical events in history—60 million views across 177 countries—and propelled Gold Medalist Yunchan Lim‘s meteoric rise to stardom. In the just three seasons since his Cliburn win, concert engagements have included most of the world’s career-highlight venues and orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestras, and Orchestre de Paris, and Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw, and Seoul Arts Center (most quickly sold out). His performance videos are now the most viewed online for some of classical piano’s most popular works, including Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3, Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3, Liszt 12 Transcendental Etudes, and Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22, K. 482.
Chaired by Paul Lewis, the jury comprised Till Fellner, Mari Kodama, Anne-Marie McDermott, Gabriela Montero, Jon Nakamatsu, Lise de la Salle, Yevgeny Sudbin, and Wu Han.
Congratulations Aristo!