Sean Kennard was the first prize winner of the 2007 Dr. Luis Sigall International Music Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile, and has also won top prizes in the Vendome International Piano Competition, Hilton Head International Piano Competition, American Pianists Association, Sendai International Music Competition, National Chopin Competition, and Iowa Piano Competition.

Sean was born in 1984 and began playing at age ten. In 1995 he made his recital debut, and since then has appeared as soloist with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Yamagata Symphony Orchestra, Sendai Philharmonic, Deutches Kammerorchester Frankfurt am Main, Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc, Orquesta Sinfonica de Chile, Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo, Orquesta Filarmónica Regional, Orquesta Sinfonica de Universidad de Concepción, Sinfonia Perugina, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, Hilton Head Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, and Florida International University Orchestra. Sean has also performed at the Chopin Society in Warsaw and in Carnegie Hall as part of the Hawaii Music Awards. Recently he gave his debut performance in Japan's Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall.

He first began playing the piano at age 10 with Ellen Masaki in Hawaii. At age 13, while he was her student, he gave a recital at the Academy of Arts in Honolulu performing the 24 Chopin Etudes. Three years after his first piano lesson he was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He studied with Eleanor Sokoloff at the Curtis Institute of Music and graduated in 2004. In his final year at Curtis, he won the piano department's Sergei Rachmaninoff Award, given to one graduating pianist each year. Currently Sean is working with Enrique Graf, first prize winner of the William Kapell International Piano Competition and Artist-in-Residence at the College of Charleston, South Carolina.

www.seankennard.com