Lauren Zhang - Pianist

Lauren Zhang is currently a senior at Harvard College studying Chemistry. She began piano lessons with Madeline Ignazito at the age of four, and from 2010 has studied with Dr Robert Markham in the Junior Department at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. She also has received guidance from Professor Christopher Elton since 2017. 

Highlights include performances with the Orchestra of the Swan, China National Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Warsaw Sinfonia, European Union Chamber Orchestra, and in the Klavier-festival Ruhr. 

She won the 2018 BBC Young Musician Competition and performed Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Wigglesworth to widespread critical acclaim.

Her performances have been broadcast live on BBC 4, BBC Radio 3, TVN24 in Poland, and Deutschlandfunk in Germany.

She has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Nottingham Royal Concert Hall, the Herkulessaal in Munich, Schloss Elmau, and the Kissinger Sommer, Ryedale, Wooburn and Lichfield Festivals, among many others. 

In 2019, she attended the Verbier Festival Academy and was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music. 

In 2016, Lauren won first prize at the 15th Ettlingen International Piano Competition in Germany. Among other achievements, she was a prize-winner at the Wales International Piano Festival (2016) and the Young Pianist of the North International Competition (2015) and was awarded first prize in the EPTA-UK (18 and under) competition (2015). 

Lauren has participated in masterclasses or lessons with Joaquín Achúcarro, Sergei Babayan, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Fabio Bidini, Peter Donohoe, Peter Frankl, Kenneth Hamilton, Klaus Hellwig, Angela Hewitt, Stephen Hough, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Pascal Nemirovski, Marios Papadopoulos, Menahem Pressler, Boris Slutsky and John Thwaites. 

She is under the management of Concerto Winderstein.

Lauren conducts research on positron emission tomography (PET) tracers in the Brugarolas Lab at the Gordon Center for Medical Imaging affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She is also passionate about bringing music to vulnerable populations through Harvard-Radclife MIHNUET (Music In Hospitals and Nursing Homes Using Entertainment as Therapy).