Kevin KYAW
Kevin Kyaw is a pianist from Myanmar. He spent most of his childhood in Myanmar self-studying the piano, relying on free resources found on the internet and YouTube. During his first year of undergraduate studies in engineering at a local university in Myanmar, he met Kimball Gallagher and Kaiyin Huang, two concert pianists from the United States and Taiwan, who ignited his passion in pursuing music as his lifelong aspiration.
Under their guidance, Kevin enrolled as a piano major at Missouri Western State University (MWSU) where he graduated summa cum laude and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music on a full scholarship. He went on to study at the University of Kansas (KU) where he was awarded a full scholarship and a teaching assistantship. He recently graduated from KU with a master’s degree in piano performance. This fall, he will start his doctoral program in piano performance at the State University of New York at Stony Brook where he is a recipient of a full scholarship and a graduate teaching assistantship. Kevin has performed at venues such as the National Theatre of Yangon in Myanmar, Sala dei Notari in Italy, the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan as well as the Acropolium of Carthage in Tunisia. He has performed at music festivals such as Music Fest Perugia, Maccagno Piano Days Festival, soundSCAPE Festival, ATLAS Music Academy, to name a few. Kevin has been a finalist in the KU Piano Concerto Competition and received first prizes in Kansas State MTNA-Steinway Young Artist Piano Competition, MWSU Concerto/Aria Competition, ATLAS Music Academy Competition and Philharmonic Society of Myanmar Festival Competition. Kevin has extensive teaching experiences ranging from working with young beginning students to college-level music majors. He previously worked as the Director of the KU Community Music School, as well as the head music teacher at Khayay International School in Yangon, Myanmar, where he taught private piano lessons and led music classes for children as young as three years old. He has also been an artist-teacher for the Music Society of Myanmar Festival and Competition. A strong advocate for building the classical music scene in his home country, Kevin currently serves as Assistant Artistic Director of the Myanmar Music Festival. |