Meet the Reviewers
One of the exciting and unique features of the Radda Rise International Piano Competition and Achievement Festival is the opportunity to improve your performances as part of the experience.
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Every competition applicant will receive a video review of their competition recordings before the judging round. After receiving the video review and learning from one of the Reviewers below, applicants have the option to resubmit new recordings for the judging round.
Be sure to apply early to take advantage of this exciting feature!
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The Radda Rise Piano Achievement Festival is a new opportunity for pianists of all ages and skill levels to learn and challenge themselves to improve their performances. Rather than competing against other musicians, Achievement Festival participants will submit their initial recording(s) for feedback from a Radda Reviewer. After receiving this feedback, participants will “compete” against their initial performances and strive to improve over the course of 6 weeks. At the end of the 6 weeks, participants will submit their second round of recordings to receive additional comments, awards, recognition, and an official rating on their overall performance and improvement between rounds from their Reviewer.
Darío Llanos Javierre
Languages: English and Spanish
Praised for “demonstrating exactly how a real musician can possess a limitless reserve of technical strength, (...) always placed in subservience to the uncompromising musical demands of the score” (Musical Opinion) and for his “clarity and exceptional tonal control”(Musical Opinion), Darío Llanos Javierre has been hailed as having an “intellectually probing pianism of forensic intensity, but delivered without fuss or excessive gesture” (The Liszt Society Newsletter).
He is currently based between Madrid, his home town, and Dallas, where he held a teaching fellowship in the College of Music at the University of North Texas for his Graduate Artist Certificate in Music Performance with Maestro Joseph Banowetz for which he was nominated for the 2019 Outstanding Teaching Fellow award.
In 2014, he was awarded the first prize in the International Piano Prize organised by The Liszt Society in London for his interpretation of the Troisième Année of Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage. Since then, he is regularly invited by The Liszt Society, The Keyboard Charitable Trustand Master Musicians International to give series of recitals across England. His outstanding acquaintance of Franz Liszt’s work was acknowledged again in 2016, being a prizewinner in the Los Angeles Franz Liszt International Piano Competition.
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Michelle ShanShan Ding
Language: English
Michelle ShanShan Ding is a versatile soprano-pianist with a passion for both performance and community engagement. She has been a guest artist at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival for the past three years, showcasing roles such as Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Jack’s Mom in Into the Woods, and Public Opinion in Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers. Michelle’s professional journey also includes performances in Detroit Opera’s Aida in Concert (2022) and a collaborative Madama Butterfly production with Detroit, Pittsfield, and Cincinnati Operas in 2023.
In addition to her performance career, Michelle is the soprano soloist and children’s choir director at the historic First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor, a 200-year-old institution with a rich musical legacy. Michelle’s academic credentials include a Master’s in Vocal Performance (2020) and a Doctorate in Piano Performance (2019). She is a Charles Fisher Scholarship recipient, with a Master’s in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan (2016) and a Bachelor’s in Piano Performance from California Institute of the Arts, supported by the Early Music Scholarship and Colburn Foundation Scholarship.
Outside of music, Michelle is deeply involved in community service, serving on several boards, including the Ann Arbor Piano Teacher Guild and Burns Park Players, and as the president-elect of the Burns Park Elementary PTO. In her leisure time, she enjoys spending time with her family and her six parrots.
Selene Hongni Wu
Languages: English and Chinese
Born in Shanghai, China, pianist Selene Hongni Wu began studying piano when she was five years old. She attended the Shanghai Music Elementary School attached to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at the age of 9 and studied with Steinway Artist Christopher Zhong. In the same year, Selene won the “TOYAMA” International Teenager Piano Competition in Shanghai.
Selene has won many top prizes of international competitions including St. Andrews International Piano Concerto Competition, the 10th International Rosario Marciano Piano Competition in Vienna, 2017-2018 MTNA Steinway Young Artist Piano Competition, and the Walled City Music International Piano Competition. She has performed in venues throughout Shanghai, China; Vienna, Austria; Northern Ireland; Taiwan; Canada; and the United States.
As a chamber musician, Selene has worked with many great artists such as the Brentano Quartet and the Indianapolis Quartet. She’s a member of a saxophone trio and a piano trio. She’s also very experienced with opera and singers. In the Baltimore, Maryland area, she serves as an opera pianist/accompanist for the Peabody Opera and Peabody Preparatory.
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Nuno Ventura de Sousa
Languages: English and Portuguese
“With the Chopin Etude op.25 no.7, Nuno Ventura de Sousa filled the hall with a beauty that cannot be expressed with words. Listening to this quality of performance in a competition is nothing short of a miracle.” – Chopin Magazine, Japan.
Nuno Ventura de Sousa was born in July 1996. He started his piano studies with Professor Maria José Guedes in Porto Music Conservatoire. He was admitted to Hannover Music University and University of North Texas, ultimately choosing the latter to continue his studies with Maestro Vladimir Viardo who studied with Lev Naumov and received the Gold Medal in the 1973 Van Cliburn Competition. Ventura de Sousa graduated from the University of North Texas in 2017 and is currently pursuing a Master of Performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with the acclaimed Professor Jiracek von Arnim.
Nuno Ventura de Sousa has obtained almost 50 prizes of which around 40 were first place prizes in national and international competitions in Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro, and the United States, including 1st prize in Santa Cecilia Competition (Porto), 1st prize in Antón García Abril Competition (Teruel), 1st prize in “Manja” Competition (Montenegro), 2nd prize in “César Franck” Competition (Belgium), and 2nd prize ex-aequo in “Manhattan” Competition (New York).
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Konstanca Dyulgerova
Languages: English, German, and Bulgarian
Bulgarian pianist KONSTANCA DYULGEROVA commenced her piano studies when she was six years old at the National School of Music "Lubomir Pipkov" in Sofia where she graduated with honors in 2014 in the class of Ludmil Angelov, honorary Professor in New Bulgarian University in Sofia, Bulgaria. From the academic year 2015/2016, Konstanca was a student of the Austrian pianist and conductor Prof. Stefan Vladar at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Currently she is doing her Master studies in Piano Performance in the same university as a student of the renowned pianist Prof. Jan Jiracek von Arnim.
Konstanca is a laureate of numerous piano competitions in Slovenia, Denmark, Spain, USA and Bulgaria. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 she became the winner of the Grand Scholarship named after Lidia Kuteva and given by Prof. Pavlina Dokovska and International Foundation “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” and during her school years in Bulgaria, she has been a scholar of The Ministry of Culture in Bulgaria, “Comunitas” Foundation, American Foundation for Bulgaria, International Foundation “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” and Foundation “Yordan Kamdzhalov”. She was also a part of the successful children in the “Art” category of “Dimitar Berbatov” Foundation from 2008 to 2013. From 2016, she is supported by the Rotary Club Prinz Eugen in Vienna.