Gabriel Crist, piano (Durham, NC), has won numerous awards, including placing first in the East Carolina University Young Artist Piano Competition, the North Carolina Division of the Music Teachers National Association Piano Competition, and the North Carolina Symphony Kathleen Price and Joseph M. Bryan Youth Concerto Competition. In addition to being a pianist, Gabriel is also a composer. In the spring of 2018, his piece “Shine and Shade” was commissioned and later premiered by the North Carolina Youth Wind Ensemble during their inaugural year. Gabriel was selected to participate in 2018’s MATA Jr. festival, which concluded with a performance of his Quartet by members of the Face the Music ensemble. In 2017, Crist received an honorable mention in the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers’ Morton Gould Young Composer’s Award competition for his piano piece “Epigrams”. Crist has participated in orchestral and chamber music programs including the Mallarmé Youth Chamber Orchestra, the Kinhaven Music School, and the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program as a pianist, a cellist, and a violinist. He studies piano with Fabio Bidini at the Colburn Conservatory of Music and studies composition with Stephen Jaffe. Previous Young Artists Program participant (2019, 2020, 2021)