Tertis and Aronowitz Competition Winners Concert

Xunyu Zhou, winner of the 2025 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition, and Sam Rosenthal, winner of the 2025 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, perform a Tertis-inspired programme including works by Bridge, Bowen and Bax, joined by pianist Sophia Rahman. Xunyu hails from China and is studying with Tabea Zimmermann in Frankfurt, whilst Sam from the US is studying at the Kronberg Academy under the tutelage of Nobuko Imai.

XUNYU ZHOU - VIOLA

Xunyu Zhou, born in China in 2007, is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main under the guidance of Prof. Tabea Zimmermann. In January 2025, she won the First Prize at the Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition. In March of the same year, she won the second Prize at the 10th Johansen International String Competition in Washington, D.C.

Her previous awards include the Grand Prize at both the 21st Montelusa Cavai International Youth Music Competition (Italy, 2020) and the 11th Giuseppe Raciti International String Competition (Italy, 2022), as well as a laureate title at the 5th Oskar Nedbal Viola Competition (2023). In 2024, she reached the semi-finals of the prestigious Primrose International Viola Competition. Xunyu has performed with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra under Tang Muhai at the Shanghai Philharmonic Hall (2021). Since 2022, she has been a four-time full-scholarship participant at Morningside Music Bridge.

She studied with Prof. Nian Liu at the Affiliated Middle School of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music from 2017 to 2024. She has also received artistic inspiration through masterclasses with renowned violists such as Hsin-Yun Huang, Roberto Diaz, Lars Anders Tomter, Atar Arad and Tabea Zimmermann.

SAMUEL ROSENTHAL - VIOLA

Internationally acclaimed for his generous musical spirit, violist Samuel Rosenthal delights in sharing music with audiences of all ages and collaborating with some of today's preeminent artists. His performances are recognized for their “intimate, personal approach” (Journal of the American Viola Society) and communicative style “clearly conveying the range of human emotions” (ClevelandClassical.com). 

First Prize winner at the 2025 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, Sam was also recipient of the silver medal at the 2021 Primrose International Viola Competition. Other awards and recognitions include major prizes at the Johansen International Competition and, as a member of the Razumovsky String Quartet, at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

Sam began his musical studies in Cleveland, and continued his viola studies with Jeffrey Irvine as a member of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His passion for chamber music was ignited by formative work with the Cavani String Quartet and Cleveland Quartet violinist Peter Salaff. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Perlman Music Program community as a student at both the Summer Music School and the Chamber Music Workshop. His time at PMP involved transformative travel residencies to Sarasota, Palm Beach, and Tel Aviv, Israel. 

Chamber music plays a central part in Sam’s musical life. Since 2023, he has attended the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, where he had the opportunity to perform and collaborate with its legendary roster of extraordinary artists. Sam has been invited to perform at a variety of celebrated chamber music festivals across the United States and abroad including Kronberg Academy’s Chamber Music Connects the World, Chamberfest Cleveland, Musique de Chambre en Normandie, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, and Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute. In 2024, he performed at the Schiermonnikoog Festival in the Netherlands, where he received the Audience Prize.

Sam is a graduate of the Juilliard School where he had the honor of studying with Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Hsin-Yun Huang and was a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship. He is currently studying at the Kronberg Academy under the tutelage of Nobuko Imai. These studies are funded by the Annika and Wolfgang Fink Patronage. His studies of viola and chamber music have also included work with esteemed artists such as Tabea Zimmermann, Kim Kashkashian, Donald Weilerstein, Roger Tapping, Yura Lee, Merry Peckham, and Joel Krosnick.

SOPHIA RAHMAN - PIANO

Known for her ‘supreme chamber-musical responsiveness’ - The Arts Desk, pianist Sophia Rahman is a renowned chamber musician, sought-after mentor and innovative Artistic Director. Since 2020 Sophia has directed Whittington Festival where she has worked with distinguished singers Mark Padmore and Roderick Williams and mentored some of the brightest instrumental and vocal talents of the younger generation. As a long-time champion of under-represented composers’ work, Sophia made the first UK recording of Florence Price’s piano concerto, for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. She has made several discs of the work of female composers such as Rebecca Clarke and Dorothy Howell, her recordings of Howell’s works featuring in several episodes of BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week.

Together with duo partner Andres Kaljuste, Sophia is committed to performing newly commissioned and undiscovered Estonian repertoire alongside the music of the celebrated Arvo Pärt, with whom the duo has enjoyed a long working association. The duo’s first disc of violin and piano music of Pärt’s composition teacher Heino Eller, recorded at the Arvo Pärt Centre, was released in 2024 to critical acclaim, and they have premiered a cluster of viola and piano works written/arranged especially for them, notably by Tõnu Kõrvits, Rasmus Puur and Mingo Rajandi.

Sophia played harpsichord in Chamber Domaine’s Brandenburg Project at Deal Festival in 2024, a three-concert series repeated at the Wigmore Hall in June 2025. Sophia has toured extensively, appearing at top festivals like Gstaad, IMS Prussia Cove, Kuhmo and Pärnu, and has collaborated with world-class musicians including Klaus Mäkelä, Augustin Hadelich and Steven Isserlis. Sophia has played for Steven Isserlis’ class at IMS Prussia Cove since 2011, where she has also worked with Atar Arad, Kim Kashkashian, Thomas Riebl, Hartmut Rohde and Steven Doane. Her interest in this work originated as a class pianist for the legendary cellist and teacher William Pleeth at the Britten-Pears School. After attending the Yehudi Menuhin School, Sophia took a first-class honours degree in English from King’s College, London, completing postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music and winning the Royal Overseas League’s collaborative and chamber music piano awards in consecutive years.

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