Palo Alto Teen Musicians Perform On NPR

Via From the Top: 18-year-old pianist Cameron Akioka and 17-year-old guitarist Nicholas Padmanhaban – both Palo Alto residents - will appear on an upcoming episode of From the Top, the hit NPR radio program featuring America’s best young classical musicians and hosted by acclaimed pianist Christopher O’Riley. The show will air on KDFC on Sunday, June 3* at 7 PM and is available for streaming and podcast at fromthetop.org beginning May 28*. The broadcast features performances and interviews with outstanding young musicians and was taped before a live audience at the recital hall at San Francisco Conservatory on March 4.

Cameron is a senior at Palo Alto High School. She studies piano with Olya Katsman and also performs with the Young Chamber Musicians. Cameron has attended the Tanglewood Young Artist Festival, California Summer Music, and Music@Menlo. She has won prizes from the San Jose International Piano Competition, the Pacific Musical Society, and the Young Pianist’s Beethoven Competition. Cameron’s proudest achievement was being inducted to the Young Artist Guild of the Music Teachers’ Association of California in 2017. Cameron is also an avid writer and artist.

On the broadcast she performs: III. Allegro con brio, ma non leggiere from Piano Sonata No. 4, Op. 29 by Sergei Prokofiev and Concert Etude no. 2 in F minor, "La Leggierezza" by Franz Liszt.

Nicholas attends Palo Alto High School and studies guitar with Scott Cmiel at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Division. He was a National YoungArts Foundation merit winner in both 2018 and 2017. Nicholas was the first-place winner in the Sierra Nevada Guitar Competition in both 2016 and 2014 and also took first place in the California statewide guitar competition of the 2016 American String Teachers Association. He was runner-up in the 2017 Mondavi Center Young Artists Competition, where he was also awarded the Bouchaine Young Artists Award for Festival Napa Valley. He previously appeared on “From The Top” with his guitar quartet in 2015. Outside the guitar, Nicholas enjoys chemistry, physics, going out with friends, and watching sci-fi and action movies.

On the broadcast he performs Prelude and Gigue - Double from Suite in C minor, BWV 997 by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Also featured: 15-year-old violist Sophia Valenti from Santa Rosa, California performing: Rhapsodie from Suite Hébraïque by Ernest Bloch, with Christopher O'Riley, piano; 17-year-old violinist Hannah Duncan from Belle Plaine, Iowa, recipient of From the Top’s Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award performing La Gitana by Fritz Kreisler with Christopher O’Riley, piano. SFCM College students Connor Dugas, flute; Andrew Friedman, clarinet; Ani Bukujian, violin; Stephanie Li, cello; Sohrab Bazargannia, percussion; and Jungeun Kim, piano perform “Images from Fallingwater” by 19-year-old composer Alistair Coleman, from Bethesda, Maryland.

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*Editor's Note: This post has been updated to reflect a change in the airing schedule. The show was to air Sunday, May 20 but will now air Sunday, June 3. Additionally, the show was set to be available for streaming and podcast at fromthetop.org beginning May 15; the podcast date is now May 28.

Photo courtesy From The Top/NPR