Meet Haozhou Wang, a musically inclined high school student at PALCS. At age 3 and a half, Haozhou discovered his love of music and began playing the piano. Now age 17, Haozhou is an accomplished award-winner in several international piano competitions. On top of that, he takes courses at The Julliard School in New York.
Why PALCS?
The flexibility of learning online has allowed Haozhou to focus on his passion and pursue his dreams. Haozhou takes all his high school graduation requirement courses through PALCS, and supplements his education with courses at Julliard. Haozhou’s mother, Fangqin Jiang, says that, “he always dreamed to be a student at Juilliard School, so he worked very hard and learned repertoire very quickly.” With the help of his private teacher, Haozhou prepared for the very competitive and challenging Julliard audition. After spending around six to eight hours a day practicing and performing, the Julliard’s Pre-College Division accepted Haozhou in 2016. Every Saturday, he takes the train from Philadelphia to New York City to attend his classes. Some of these classes include Music Theory, Ear Training, Piano Performance Forum, a private piano lesson, and Studio Class.
You can see some of Haozhou’s amazing piano performance skills on his YouTube page.
Awards & Accomplishments
A few of his finest accomplishments over the past few years include winning first place in the Professional Children Group of the 5th Cadenza National Cup Chinese Youth Piano Competition in 2013. A year later, he won second place in the San Jose International Piano Competition Junior Group. In 2015, Haozhou received first place at 7th Bösendorfer and Yamaha USASU International Piano Competition. But it didn’t stop there — he also received the Best Chopin Performance Award.
In 2017, Haozhou traveled to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts under the invitation of USA Music & Art Exchange and was praised by the famous pianist and educator, Gabriel Kwok. That same year, he won first place in The Juilliard School Gina Bachauer and Nordmann Piano Competition. Haozhou gained the full scholarship of Gina Bachauer that year as well! The William Knabe International Piano Competition announced Haozhou the first prize winner in 2018.
Goals & Beyond
Haozhou has many goals in life, and one of them is being a concert pianist who travels all over the world. Beside music, Haozhou loves participating in sports like soccer and swimming. In his free time, Haozhou volunteers at piano festivals in the United States to interpret and help translate to students from China.
Thank you to Fangqin Jiang, Haozhou’s mother, for speaking with us and sharing Haozhou’s story. We are extremely proud of Haozhou for all of his accomplishments and successes. Keep up the hard work!
To read an earlier blog post on Haozhou, click here.
