First class honors

"I had no idea about this prize, which was a big surprise," says Xu, who was born into a musical family in Shanghai and was enrolled in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2016, where he studied piano and immersed himself in chamber music.

"When I applied to study at Tianjin Juilliard, the campus was still under construction. Like many students, I didn't know what to expect, but I was very intrigued by the school's chamber music program," says Xu, adding that he will continue his musical study by applying for a doctoral program.

Unlike Xu, oboist Bethany Alison Lawrence plans to work in China.

"The music scene, especially the chamber music scene, is vibrant in China. I will have a couple of auditions next week and, hopefully, I can work with Chinese symphony orchestras," says Lawrence, who hails from Houston in the US. She won the Joseph W. Polisi Prize, which is dedicated to graduating students who best exemplify the school's values of "artist as citizen", which manifest as both outstanding artistry and citizenship by way of outreach, community participation and leadership.

She adds that studying in China is her very first experience living outside her home state of Texas. "It has been a pretty big learning experience and I'm really happy with my decision," she says.

Wang Ziyi, who studied in the collaborative piano program with her teacher Katherine Chu, also graduated from the Tianjin school. During the past two years, she has developed a passion for vocal music, a subject that she was not very interested in initially.

According to Chu, the program places a special emphasis on vocal coaching and prepares students for careers as performers, coaches and teaching artists as the field of collaborative piano develops rapidly throughout Asia.

"I just made the decision last week to dive into the collaborative piano environment, and Germany will be the next chapter in my life. I'd like to challenge myself to learn another language and live and study in a totally new country," says Wang.

The cooperation for the Tianjin school was announced on Sept 28,2015, by Joseph W. Polisi, the sixth president of the Juilliard School in New York－who held the position for 34 years (1984-2018), the longest presidential term in the history of the school－during the visit of Peng Liyuan, the wife of President Xi Jinping.