Avery Lin Gagliano (piano)

13-year old Washingtonian Avery Gagliano is a Jack Kent Cook Scholarship recipient and a Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation. At age nine, she had her orchestral debut with the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra (MCYO) at Strathmore Concert Hall and performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York. The following year, Avery was invited to perform on National Public Radio's (NPR) From The Top, and was featured in the PBS documentary titled "Arts and the Mind."

In 2015 Avery was selected as one of the thirteen Young Artists to compete at the prestigious Cleveland International Piano Competition and was invited to perform master classes at the Oxford Philomusica Piano Festival with Alfred Brendel as the Festival's patron, Andr's Schiff as President. Among her honors are her most recent wins of Third Prize and Best Solo Work Prize at the 2015 Southeastern Piano Festival, First Prize at the International Young Artist Piano Competition in Washington, DC and Grand Prix at the Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford, Connecticut. Previous highlights include her winning First Prize in all divisions of Marlin-Engel Piano Competition, the Marlin-Engel Instrumental Competition, the Cogen Piano Concerto Competition, the DCPS Piano Competition, the Northern Virginia Music Teachers Association (NVMTA) Piano Competition, and the NVMTA Chamber Competition.

Avery has performed as a soloist with the MCYO, the Midwest Young Artists (MYA) Symphony Orchestra, the Capital City Symphony and the National Chamber Ensemble. She has performed in prestigious concert venues such as the Strathmore Concert Hall, the Ravinia Pavilion, the Greene Space at WQXR, the United Nations Headquarters with Lang Lang, the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, the Atlas Performing Arts Center, the Ward Recital Hall at the Catholic University, the Center for the Arts at George Mason University and the Greenbrier of West Virginia.

Avery studies piano under the tutelage of Marina Alekseyeva and violin under Jorge Orozco. Avery has received instructions in keyboard and in strings with renowned artists such as Lang Lang, Alexander Kobrin, Lambert Orkis, Horacio Gutierrez, Joseph Kalichstein, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Benedetto Lupo, Dmitri Shteinberg, Mikhail Volchok, Larissa Dedova, Jonathan Carney and the Emerson String Quartet.

Outside of music, Avery enjoys reading, doing math, swimming, dancing ballet, writing pop songs and watching movies.