This year's concert will be an extra treat for these young musicians as they have the opportunity to perform under the direction of the Festival's Principal Conductor Gerard Schwarz.

The evening will highlight five of the Festival's outstanding student musicians performing music from Chopin and Liszt to Prokofiev and Sibelius.

The concert will begin at 8 p.m. at Dana Auditorium, Guilford College.

This year's winners are Lo-An Lin from Taipei, Taiwan; Christopher Lowry from Antioch, Tenn.; Whitney Pizza from Salt Lake City, Utah; Edward Tan from Singapore; and Irina Arbatskaya from Odessa, Ukraine.

Eighteen-year-old pianist Lo-An Lin was born in Taipei, Taiwan. She came to the United States when she was 15 and went to the Interlochen Arts Academy studying with Yoshikazu Nagai.

Lin has been a prize winner in any competitions in both Taiwan and the United States, including the Kosciusko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition and the MMTA Concerto Competition.

She has won first prize in many competitions, including the Yamaha National Piano Competition in Taiwan (2003), the Viardo International Piano Competition (2005), the MTNA National Piano Competition (2006), and won second prize in the Missouri Southern Inter-national Piano Competition (2006).

Lo-An will be performing the first movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto No.1.

An avid musician, 17-year-old Christopher Lowry has distinguished himself on both the violin and viola. A rising high school senior from Antioch, Tenn., Lowry studies viola with Kathryn Plummer at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music in Nashville. He studies violin with Erin Hall, also at Blair. Having played violin for 13 years, moving to viola seemed a natural progression.

For two years, Lowry has been learning viola repertoire and technique, as well as falling in love with the sonorities of the instrument.

His work on the violin has earned him honors in All-State Orchestra, several Honors Orchestras (where he served as concertmaster), and the Governor's School for the Arts. He served as principal violist at All-State Orchestra this year, and at the University of Tennessee Honors Orchestra.

Lowry has played violin in Nashville's Curb Youth Symphony for six years, and was asked to play viola in Vanderbilt University's orchestra this past school year. He attended Sewanee Summer Music Festival last summer where he was principal violist for a number of concerts.

Besides the honor of being chosen to perform in this year's EMF concerto competition, one of the highlights has been playing principal in the concert with Roberto Daz, as well as playing for Daz in a masterclass.

Lowry's love of music extends beyond viola and violin, as demonstrated by his regular gigs on percussion and by the hours spent composing orchestral music. He will be performing the first movement of Bloch's "Suite Hebraique."

Whitney Pizza is from Salt Lake City, Utah, where she is a piano performance major at the University of Utah. She is currently a student of Dr. Bonnie Gritton.

In her spare time, Pizza enjoys playing many sports, including golf, softball, basketball, and tennis. She also loves singing, dancing, and kickboxing. She will be performing the third movement of Prokofiev's "Piano Concerto No. 3."

A native of Singapore, Edward Tan was formerly the assistant concertmaster of the Singapore Youth Orchestra. A three-time prize winner in the National Violin Competition, he made numerous performances, most notably a "Young Artists" concert in which he performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

At the age of 16, he was accepted into the Eastman School of Music, where he currently studies under the guidance of Oleh Krysa.

In 2006, he was one of five violinists in Eastman nominated for the performer's certificate for an outstanding jury performance.

In addition to violin performance, he is enthusiastic about conducting and composing and has written and premiered works for solo piano, chamber group and symphony orchestra.

Tan will be performing the first movement of Sibelius' Violin Concerto.

Irina Arbatskaya is 18 yeasr old and was born in Odessa, Ukraine. She started to play piano at the age of six and has studied with Alexander Bug-aersky, Valery Kozlov and Sergey Dorensky.

This fall, she is going to continue her education at the Bowling Green State Univers-ity in Ohio under the tutelage of Maxim Mepilensky.

Arbatskaya is a winner of several international piano competitions, including Vicenca International Piano Compeition in Italy, the Eugena Kaki International Piano Competition in Moldaro, the Vladimir Horowitz Internation-al Piano Competition and the Art of Performing Competition, both of the Ukraine.

She has also participated in international festivals in Greece, Italy, Germany, Austria, and the United States.

This is her fourth summer at the festival, and she says she has grown up at EMF. She likes it because it encompasses many different parts of her personality. Irina will be performing the second and third movements of Liszt's "Piano Concerto No. 1."

This concert is made possible through contributions from AIG United Guaranty.

Tickets prices range from $25-$31 and are available through the festival's box office at the Carolina Theatre (310 South Greene Street in downtown Greensboro).

A limited number of $5 student tickets are also available in advance at the box office.

Call 336-3332605 weekdays from noon to 5 p.m. or access www.EasternMusicFestival.org at any time to order tickets.