2025 Virtuosi Judges

Mina Perry

Mina Hirobe-Perry has performed in recitals as soloist, chamber musician in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, North America, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. She also enjoys concertizing two piano/four hand repertoire. She earned her Bachelor and Master Degrees with honor at Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo, where she studied with Prof. Tetsushige Maruyama and Prof. Konstantin Ganev, who was the assistant professor of the eminent pedagogue Heinrich Neuhaus at Moscow Conservatory. After three years of concertizing throughout Japan and teaching piano privately, she moved to Germany where she earned her Artist Diploma and served as a correpetitor at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold. She continued advanced study at the Glenn Gould School of Music in Toronto, Canada.

Ms. Perry’s priority is to enable her students to discover their unique style in music making, along with developing their technique for beautiful sound production.  As a dedicated teacher, her students have won numerous competitions locally and nationally, including three CAPMT (MTNA California division) state winners. Her students also have been accepted to prestigious music conservatories and universities such as Juilliard, Manhattan, San Francisco, Eastman, Cleveland, Peabody, USC, UCLA, Indiana, and Hochschüle für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin.

In 2013, Ms. Perry founded the Southern California Music Institute, a non-profit organization 501(c)(3), where she serves as the president. The institute’s mission is to provide an opportunity for all youth to receive a quality musical guidance. In conjunction with the institute, she founded the John Perry Academy of Music International Piano Festival, which is a summer program that is carefully designed for exceptionally gifted young students. She was also a Founder and Director of the Honors Piano Performance Seminar at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles, where she taught private piano lessons, two piano/four hand ensemble, and piano chamber music. Currently, she focuses on guiding exceptionally gifted young pianists at her private studio in Princeton, NJ.

In summer, Ms. Perry enjoys performing and teaching at summer festivals world wide such as Summer Music on the Shannon in Ireland, Academie Internationale de Courchevel in France, Vianden International Music Festival in Luxembourg, Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy, Duxbury Music Festival in Massachusetts, Hotchkiss School Summer Portal Piano Program in Connecticut, and John Perry Academy Summer festival in California. She is also frequently invited to give master classes as well as to judge piano competitions nationally and internationally. 

Eric Fung

A Bach Prize Winner from the Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany, pianist Dr. Eric Fung has performed in international festivals and concert series, including the Israel Festival in Jerusalem, European Piano Forum in Berlin (Germany), the Puigcerda Music Festival (Spain), the Philadelphia Bach Festival, the Kamerman Piano Series in Pensacola (Florida), the Lancaster International Piano Festival, and the Hong Kong Arts Festival.

The New York Times praised his pianism for being “refined, and elegant.”  He was also described by the New York Concert Review as a pianist with a musical persona akin to Rudolph Serkin. The Hong Kong Economic Review called him “unique among the contemporary Chinese pianists, for the aesthetic of his music can be traced back to the study and passion for Bach’s works.”  

Dr. Fung holds degrees in piano performance (B.M. and M.M. ) and music theory pedagogy (M.A.) from the Eastman School of Music. He received his D.M.A. from Juilliard School and is currently the Carmean Endowed Professor of Music (Piano Performance) at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. 

He is a Steinway Artist.