Anna Larsen

Anna Larsen is a native of Newton and is in the fifth grade. She has been studying piano since she was three years old, first with Sachiko Isihara at the Suzuki School of Newton and now with Tema Blackstone and Professor Hung Kuan Chen in the Preparatory School at the New England Conservatory of Music. In 2008, she received a scholarship from the Lang Lang Foundation. With her fellow scholars, she played collaborative pieces on the Oprah Winfrey Show, at Carnegie Hall with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, and the virtuosic Mack Wilberg Carmen Fantasy (for two pianos, eight hands) at Carnegie Hall and Segerstrom Hall.

Anna maintains a wide repertoire and especially loves Bach.  She has mastered all 24 preludes and fugues from Bach's “Well Tempered Clavier,” book 1.  This was a huge project that took one and a half years to complete.  She recorded them all last summer and has released a CD, now available online. She is now just beginning to learn book 2. In addition, Anna composes her own music.  She has won first prize in the Music Teachers’ National Association Composition Competition for the last three years, and has been recognized in several other competitions at the national level.  Currently, she is orchestrating her first symphony and has completed the first movement.

Outside music, Anna loves swimming, skating, reading and drawing cartoons.