Abigail Park – 1st Prize 2018

Abigail Park, 16, is a scholarship Fellow at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy, a training center for advanced pre-college musicians. She is currently studying with Almita Vamos. Abigail began her violin studies when she was 4 years old at the Betty Haag Music Academy. She studied with Betty Haag for 4 years while participating in their many concerts including their Orchestra Hall concerts. Abigail has been awarded top prizes in number of competitions, including 1st place in the elementary division at Sejong Music Competition (2014), 1st place in the primary division at SAM (2015),1st place in the junior division at SAM (2017), 1st place at the AMI Violin Competition (2018), 1st place in the intermediate division at SAM (2019), and most recently she placed 1st place in the senior division at Confucius Music Competition in Chicago.    Abigail is an accomplished chamber player as well. In February of 2020 her piano trio won the overall and open string division at Midwest National Chamber Music Competition. Her trio was also semifinalists in the 47th Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In the summer of 2018 Abigail was invited to participate in Brian Lewis Young Artist Program in Fairbanks, Alaska where she worked extensively with Brian Lewis and Simon James and performed with Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra. Past summer she attended Center Stage Strings in Ann Arbor, Michigan to work with Simon James. Abigail’s previous teachers also include Dr. Hye Sun Lee and Injoo Choi at the MIC. In her spare time she likes to listen to music and hang out with her friends. She is currently a junior at Glenbrook North High School.