This page needs JavaScript activated to work.

Aristo Sham

Piano
Van Cliburn 2025, Gold Medalist and Audience Award

  • In 2025, Aristo Sham was awarded both the Gold Medal and Audience Prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Praised by critics as “a marvel of deft characterization”,“consistently authoritative,” and by the The New York Times as a pianist “whose playing combines clarity, elegance and abundant technique,” Sham has dazzled audiences across 5 continents. His performance of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No.2 in the final of the Van Cliburn was lauded for its “purpose, direction, structural awareness, technical finesse and mature artistry” by Gramophone.

Read more
  • In previous seasons, Sham has appeared with the London Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, English Chamber, Orchestre Chambre de Lausanne, Utah Symphony and Minnesota orchestras with conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Marin Alsop, Edo de Waart and Sir Raymond Leppard. His 25/26 debut season as Cliburn winner includes a major tour of Asia through South Korea and China, and U.S. recitals for Aspen Music Festival, La Jolla Music Society/The Conrad, UCSB Arts and Lectures, and the Skyline Piano Artist Series at Northwestern University.


    In 2009, Aristo was featured in the documentary ‘The World’s Greatest Musical Prodigies’, broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK. He has also performed for royalty and dignitaries such as King Charles and the Queen of Belgium. In 2024, he recorded and hosted the complete Brahms solo piano music on RTHK4, Classical Radio in Hong Kong.


    Sham first gained international recognition when he won First Prize in the Ettlingen International Piano Competition in Germany in 2006, and First Prize in the Gina Bachauer International Junior Piano Competition in 2008. He is the First Prize Winner of the 2018 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions and in 2023, he won the Grand Prix at the Monte-Carlo Music Masters. He is also the recipient of top prizes at the Casagrande, Vendome Prize at Verbier Festival, Dublin, Clara Haskil, New York, Saint-Priest and Viotti International Piano Competitions.


    Sham holds a Bachelors of Arts from Harvard University and a Masters in Piano Performance from New England Conservatory. He continued his studies at the Ingesund School of Music in Sweden with Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist before returning to the States to earn an artist diploma at The Juilliard School with Robert McDonald and Orli Shaham.

    2025/26 season, 368 words. Not to be altered without permission.

Performances

View more
Close
Loading performances...

"Aristo Sham is a card-carrying risk taker ... infusing the gnarly solo part wtih purpose, direction, structural awareness, technical finesse and mature artistry..."

Gramophone, June 2025

Intermusica represents Aristo Sham worldwide as part of Intermusica New York

Martin Wittenberg
Director, Intermusica New York
+1 (719) 200-6426

David O'Leary
Artist Manager
+44 (0) 7752 396 842

Rachel Feldhaus
Associate Artist Manager, Intermusica New York
+1 619-762-8336

All artists

Contralto

Avery Amereau

Actor / Narrator

Amira Casar

Chansonnier

HK Gruber

Harpsichord

Richard Egarr

Piano accompanist

Roger Vignoles