Vivace 2026 Piano Program

Marina Lomazov & Joseph Rackers, Artistic Directors
July 29 – August 9, 2026 in Wilmington, NC

Welcome to Vivace 2026!

PROGRAM KEY DATES:

Applications Opening: Friday, October 17, 2025
Applications Deadline: Sunday, March 15, 2026
Arrival: Wednesday, July 29, 2026 (Check-in from 4:00pm to 6:00pm)
Departure: Sunday, August 9, 2026 (No festival activities held that day)

Questions? Please contact us at info@vivacemusicfoundation.org

Apply Today
  • The festival provides serious young musicians with unrivaled learning opportunities, including solo appearances in beautiful halls and intense instruction with world-class faculty artists.
  • Participants can choose to attend Vivace 2026 in-person only.
  • All participants receive a minimum of 5 45-minute master classes, and are able to study with multiple faculty. Additional lessons may be arranged.
  • Participants have access to all festival concerts, courses, discussions, interviews & more.

VIVACE 2026 Piano FACULTY

Eastman School of Music

Marina Lomazov
Eastman School of Music

Joseph Rackers
Boris Berman
Yale School of Music

Boris Berman
The Juilliard School

Tema Blackstone
Guest Artist

Michael Stephen Brown
Curtis Institute of Music & Manhattan School of Music

Michelle Cann
The Juilliard School

Hung-Kuan Chen
Oberlin College & Conservatory

Angela Cheng
Eastman School of Music

Alexander Kobrin
Texas State University School of Music

Jason Kwak
The Juilliard School

Jerome Lowenthal
CUNY Graduate Center & Mannes College of Music

Ursula Oppens
Private Studio

Gregg Pauley
Peabody Conservatory

Boris Slutsky
UNC School of the Arts

Dmitri Vorobiev

Eastman School of Music

Marina Lomazov

Vivace Co-Artistic Director

Eastman School of Music

Joseph Rackers

Vivace Co-Artistic Director

Boris Berman

Yale School of Music

Boris Berman

The Juilliard School

Tema Blackstone

Guest Artist

Michael Stephen Brown

Hailed by The New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers,” pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown performs recitals and concertos worldwide and is commissioned by leading orchestras, soloists, and chamber music organizations. A 2026 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award winner, 2025 MacDowell Fellow, and 2024 Yaddo Artist, his honors also include an Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He has appeared as soloist with the Seattle, Phoenix, North Carolina, Albany, and Maryland Symphonies, as well as the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, and has given recitals at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Louvre, Wigmore Hall, and Beethoven-Haus Bonn.

A frequent artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brown tours internationally with longtime duo partner Nicholas Canellakis and collaborates regularly with artists including Pinchas Zukerman and Arnaud Sussmann.Selected by András Schiff for an international recital tour, he also made acclaimed debuts at Zurich’s Tonhalle and New York’s 92nd Street Y.

As a composer, Brown’s latest composition, The Carnival of Endangered Wonders: A Zoological Fantasy, is a large-scale chamber work co-commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, CMS Palm Beach, La Musica (Sarasota), Music@Menlo, Friends of Music (Kansas City), and Premiere Performances of Hong Kong, which premiered in 2026. He recently served as Composer and Artist-in-Residence with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and is a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award.

A devoted educator, Brown gives masterclasses and lectures around the world, bringing students a perspective shaped equally by the concert stage and the composing desk. He earned dual degrees in piano and composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Samuel Adler and received the Petschek Piano Award.

Brown recently released Twelve Blocks, an album of original music written for friends and longtime collaborators. Upcoming recordings include the complete 13 Nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré and Mendelssohn+, a project pairing music of Felix Mendelssohn and Delphine von Schauroth. He lives in New York City with his two beloved 19th-century Steinways, Octavia and Daria, and is known to audiences for his colorful musical commentary and an unusually distinguished collection of socks.

Curtis Institute of Music & Manhattan School of Music

Michelle Cann

The Juilliard School

Hung-Kuan Chen

Oberlin College & Conservatory

Angela Cheng

Eastman School of Music

Alexander Kobrin

Texas State University School of Music

Jason Kwak

The Juilliard School

Jerome Lowenthal

CUNY Graduate Center & Mannes College of Music

Ursula Oppens

Private Studio

Gregg Pauley

Peabody Conservatory

Boris Slutsky

UNC School of the Arts

Dmitri Vorobiev

Program Details

Application fee: $80 USD
Late Application fee: $130 USD
Tuition: $1600 USD
Housing (optional): $900 USD
Application fees are non-refundable.

All applicants must submit unedited, single camera video recordings of two contrasting pieces/movements.
Multiple movements of the same piece are acceptable.

Participants aged 13 and older are eligible and encouraged to apply. Exceptionally talented applicants under the age of 13 may apply, but additional screening requirements will be requested.

Those over the age of 35 may apply to participate in our adult initiative.

All participants under the age of 16 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Parents attending the festival with a child must purchase an auditor card.

In-person participants may choose to stay at a Vivace hotel, or may find housing on their own.

The official hotel of Vivace Wilmington is the Ballast Hotel. The festival reserves the right to place participants in a neighboring hotel in downtown Wilmington.

All festival hotel rooms are double rooms. You can request a specific roommate or the festival can randomly place you with another participant.

Want a single room? Contact the festival for more information!

Scholarships are awarded to those in need only.
To be considered for financial assistance, please indicate so in the application form. For any specific information, plase send an email to ludovica.punzi@vivacemusicfoundation.org with the subject “Financial Aid Request”. 

The application form will ask you to submit: 

  • A letter stating information on how much scholarship you would need in order to be able to attend the festival; 
  • A copy of your most recent FAFSA if you have completed one. If you have not completed a FAFSA, please submit your/your family’s 2024 federal income tax return. 
  • Submit any additional records of money earned. 

A member of our scholarship committee will be in touch with you to conduct a short 15 minute interview. Financial aid decisions will be made as soon as possible following this interview process. 
All scholarship decisions are made at the time of admission and to be considered, applicants must have applied to the festival.

  • Participants should arrive in Wilmington no later than 5:00PM on July 29, 2026 and will check-out on August 9, 2025.
  • Participants may arrive in Wilmington in advance of the festival but must be responsible for their own lodging and other expenses. Practice facilities are not available until the first day of the festival.
  • Health protocols and requirements for participants will be made available as we get closer to the festival.

All piano participants will have access to practice facilities from 8:00am to 6:00pm (Mon-Sat). Sundays have usually a modified practice schedule. 

All participants are responsible for their own meals. Vivace will provide you with a VIP pass and has collaborated with the best restaurants and coffee shops in Wilmington to bring you discounts on your meal!

Airports: ILM (Wilmington) or RDU (Raleigh)

If you are flying into Wilmington (ILM), you can call Hotel Ballast upon arrival and they will send a shuttle for you. The airport is 8 minutes(!!) from downtown Wilmington.

Hotel Ballast – (910) 763-5900

If you prefer to take an Uber/Lyft – the address of the Vivacehotel is 301 N. Water Street, Wilmington.

Vivace activites take place in the most charming venues of downtown Wilmington (NC), all at walking distance one from another. Our events are surrounded by a charming and historic downtown, a lovely river walk and amazing local food. 

Vivace venues include:

Hotel Ballast, 301 N Water St, Wilmington NC (masterclasses)

Thalian Hall, 310 Chestnut Street, Wilmington NC (masterclasses and courses)

First Baptist Church, 15 N 5th Ave, Wilmington NC (masterclasses and practice rooms)

St James Episcopal Church, 362 Market St, Wilmington NC (masterclasses and practice rooms)

Wilson Center, 703 N 3rd St, Wilmington NC (masterclasses, practice rooms, concerts)

WHQR, 254 N Front St Unit 300, Wilmington NC (masterclasses)

Vivace gives you a total immersion in music for 10-straight days. Here’s what a standard day at Vivace can look like: 

8:00AM Practice Rooms open

9:00-12:00PM Masterclass sessions (45 min long, they can be observed by all participants)

12:00pm-1:00PM Lunch Break

1:00-2:00PM Special course, or masterclass or activity

2:30-5:30PM Masterclass sessions

5:30PM-7:30PM Dinner Break
6:00PM Practice Rooms close

7:30-9:00PM Concert (Faculty or participants)

9:00PM and on: 3-4 times during the festival we organize opportunities for the participants to be together, get to know each other and have fun, not mandatories but aimed to create community.

Schedule on August 10: No festival activities will be held that day. Check-out is available until 10:00am

Additional Lessons are possible and scheduled based on the faculty availability. We usually request them right at the beginning of the festival and have an additional fee of $250. 

Questions? Please contact us at info@vivacemusicfoundation.org