Art of Piano Public Masterclass: Tema Blackstone

Tema Blackstone is a dedicated pedagogue, performer, and arts leader. As a faculty of The Juilliard Pre-College Division and President of the Artemisia Foundation NYC, she teaches and lectures in a wide range of settings. At the core of Blackstone’s pedagogy comes from her unique perspective emerging from a strong background in ballet, voice and theatre. She believes interdisciplinary experiences create holistic artists.

Blackstone has presented master classes and lectures at Yale, the International Piano Festival in Shanghai, the Association of Professional Music Teachers in North America, and in summer festivals such as Vivace, Banff, MMB, Chinese Foundation and Aspen. Blackstone has served as an adjudicator for major competitions such as the Honens, Young Concert Artists, Shanghai International, and Steinway among others. She is a former faculty member at NEC and Shanghai guest professor. Her students include, Yuja Wang, Niu Niu, Maxim Lando, and Wilson Liu.

As President of the Artemisia Foundation, Blackstone has produced 85 performances and masterclasses nurturing young talented pianists. Artemisia's mission is to expose young artists to new experiences from a wide variety of mentors ranging from artists to business leaders. Through Juilliard, Yale and the International piano festival in Shanghai, she has been instrumental in securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial and grant support for emerging artists while establishing significant institutional partnerships such as the acquisition of the first Fazioli concert grand in Canada. In 2022 she and Heather Edwards collaborated with the Banff Centre to re-invigorate the piano program, where she teaches and performs each summer.

Blackstone maintains an active performing career, with recent duo and solo appearances in major venues including Shanghai Concert Hall, Jordan Hall, Carnegie Hall, Roy Thompson Hall, Barbican, Suntory, Taipei Performing Arts Centre and others with her husband, Hung-Kuan Chen. She has also collaborated with artists such as Janos Starker, Jon Kimura Parker, and Menahem Pressler & Denes Zsigmondy & numerous chamber ensembles worldwide.

Blackstone received her ARCT, Bachelors, Master's, and DMA under the tutelage of pedagogues such as Anthony Di Bonaventura, Russell Sherman, & Hung-Kuan Chen. She is a Steinway artist.

Image by Linda Li

Pianist Eden Chen has appeared in concert halls worldwide, “enthralling audiences with fluid performances and fingers that dance upon, rather than play, the piano” (Leeds International Piano Competition Festival). Under Hung-Kuan Chen, Eden earned both Master and Bachelor of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, graduating with Juilliard’s largest Commencement prize. In the highlight of his 2024-2025, Eden presents a program on the transmutation of Baroque elements into Russian romanticism in a 9-city solo recital tour of China, with notable stops in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. His past performance highlights include concerts at Wigmore Hall, Pritzker Pavilion, and both Stern Auditorium and Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, including the Grammy Salute to Classical concert. Eden is the founder and executive director of Goldfinch, a nonprofit featured by The Violin Channel for bringing healthcare benefits to classical musicians. 

Eden Chen was generously supported by the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians.

Born in Montreal, Canada, Sabrina started learning piano and went on an international student exchange program in the United States two years later receiving a certificate of achievement for “having demonstrated exceptional ability in the concepts of music”, and made her debut in Carnegie Hall when she was seven years old. She won first prizes at the Crescendo International Competition and in the Junior Category at the McGill Concerto Competition in 2010, and won 2nd prize at the Canadian Music Competition in 2012.

She spent her pre-college years at the Montreal Conservatoire de Musique and the Phil & Eli Taylor Performance Academy. Festivals she has attended include the Philadelphia International Music Festival, Orford Academy, Amalfi and Vivace music festivals, studying with Ronan O’Hara, Jerome Lowenthal, Boris Slutsky, Hee-sung Joo and many other professors. Other artists she has played for include Alice Sara Ott, Hugh Sung, David Louie and the violinist Ray Chen.

In 2023, she traveled to London on an exchange program at the Royal College of Music, studying with Dmitri Alexeev.

She is now pursuing her undergraduate studies with Olga Kern at the Manhattan School of Music.

Sabrina Chen was generously supported by the Heather Edwards Artist Award.

BoKun Liu is a pianist from Vancouver, Canada. He is currently studying under Jerome Lowenthal and Soyeon Kate Lee at the Juilliard School in New York.

BoKun Liu debuted at Carnegie Hall in New York at 11 years old. He has since won various international competitions and festivals in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. He has
been awarded more than 17 first international prizes including the D - Competition (Russia), Frederic Chopin (Romania), Great Masters (Spain) and Oakridge Park (Canada) International
piano competitions. In 2022, BoKun was named one of “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30” by CBC Music. He has been awarded the “Canadian Young Artist Standard of Excellence” Award by Steinway and Sons.

BoKun Liu has participated in masterclasses with distinguished artists such as Gary Graffman, Jonathan Biss, Antonio Pompa - Baldi, Alexander Kobrin, and others.

BoKun is an active member of the community. He co-founded a Vancouver based non-profit that helps the homeless. BoKun is a Gluck performance fellow at Juilliard, and performs in hospitals, senior centers, and schools.

BoKun (Brayden) Liu was generously supported by the Michael Davies Scholarship Endowment Fund.

Hai Lun Yu has received prizes in numerous competitions such as the Pacific International Youth Piano Competition, Horowitz Piano International Competition, Canadian Music Competition Nationals and Richmond Music Festival Concerto Challenge. In 2016, she was the youngest participant and an honorary laureate of the 10th International Chopin Piano Competition for 
Young Pianists. As such, she was given the opportunity to perform at the Polish Embassy in Moscow. Hai Lun has also won 1st prize at the Rotary Jugendmusikpreis in Lindau, 3rd prize in the 21 and younger category at the Young Pianist of the North Competition in Newcastle and 1st prize at the Grotrian-Steinweg Piano Competition. She was also one of the youngest participants at the X International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Astana and at the Aarhus International Competition in Denmark. Hai Lun performed her first piano concerto when she was five and has given many solo recitals thus far, one of which was on the Bodensee in Southern Germany. She regularly presents solo and charity concerts in her hometown of Vancouver as well. 

Hai Lun has had the opportunity to appear alongside many conductors and orchestras in Canada, Italy, Poland and Germany. She has also attended the masterclasses of Wojciech Świtała, Mikhail Voskresensky, and Andrej Jasiński, among others, and is currently studying with Professor Bernd Goetzke at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.

Hai Lun (Helen) Yu was generously supported by the Heather Edwards Artist Award.