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“The proudest moments of my teaching career have been witnessing the transformative power of piano learning to overall life success stories.” 

                                           Olga Urick                                                             

Eric Wang 

Born in Cary, North Carolina, Eric Wang has been studying piano for 11 years under Olga Urick. He is a recipient of many honors and awards, most notable ..... Read More HERE 

BALTIMORE INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL

Winner`s Concert

Big day! Congratulations to my dear student Eric Wang on tonight performance at Carnegie Hall. Well deserved!!! Special thanks to @Yury Shadrin for another great event! — at Carnegie Hall.

Carnegie Hall  


The Winners of 2018 Baltimore International Piano Competition  


With great pleasure, we presented the winners of our 2018 program at Carnegie Hall last week. 

Seth Schultheis, Eric Wang, and Kevin Huang performed works by Bach, Chopin, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Bartok. Congratulations!  - Yury Shadrin  ( Co-Artistic Director) 

Visit Baltimore International Piano Festival 

Carnegie Hall   

UNCSA winners of Classical Period Piano competition concert, April 6th, 2019

Performing F.Chopin Op.53 “Heroic” Polonaise


 Daniel  Dumitrescu

Ten wonderful years of piano lessons with Olga came to a close when I began school at Duke University. I studied chemistry, biochemistry, and related natural sciences: a natural progression for someone interested in the fundamental nature of things. This immersion into science was transformative, yet throughout this time music and Olga never left me. Instead, I’ve discovered how brilliantly connected and interwoven nature and music really are. I graduated from Duke in 2017 with a B.S. in Chemistry. READ MORE 

When I was in the studio working on a piece with Olga, she used to always ask something to the effect of, ‘What is the story here? What do you imagine, paint me a picture…’ I was terrible at this: I didn’t know what was happening, didn’t imagine anything, didn’t have a story. But now upon hearing music, vivid narrative imagery, whether physical and literal or abstract and spiritual, automatically enters my mind to an extent that approaches synesthesia. That is what Olga cultivated in me: imagination and spirit and life. 

2013 Recital - Daniel Dumitrescu

Daniel Dumitrescu performs 

Prelude Opus 32 #10 S.Rachmaninoff

Un Sospiro F.Liszt

Sonata Opus 57 1st Mvt Allegro assai L. Beethoven


 Sophia Hu

Here’s a scene that may be familiar to any student of Ms Olga’s: hunched over page 6 out of 26 of your sheet music, scribbling in crescendos and accents, and painstakingly testing them out on the keyboard before moving on to the next measure. For 12 years, I would repeat this ritual for each piece we selected for the upcoming year. I was always overeager to just play through the piece, but Ms Olga would inevitably stop me. The devil was in the details, but so was the beauty.

As a “big-picture” thinker, the foremost skill I learned from music was this attention to detail. It’s tempting to just blast through a piece for the momentary joy of having a “finished product”, but I learned throughout my experience in piano that true accomplishment comes from hours of labor invested in perfecting even the moments of silence. This was particularly pertinent for me as a STEM student. In high school at the NC School of Science and Math, I tackled everything from engineering projects to research competitions with my friends, yet all our endeavors would have been null without a combination of idealism and orientation to detail. Every final product we produced was precluded by the hours we spent sweating over circuitry or hunched over tubes in the lab; similarly, I spent over two years perfecting Chopin’s Fourth Ballade before I performed it at my last piano recital. Whether it was science or music, I could not produce something I was proud of without properly investing time in its details beforehand.  Read More 


S.Prokofiev Sonata #3 Op.28 in a-minor

F.Chopin Nocturne Op.28 #1 in c-minor.



In Memory of Kylo Augustin Balan 

10/12/1994-10/19/2017

                                            The Life Of An Angel

Kylo Agustin Balan was born on October 12, 1994, to Roberto and Aileen Balan.

He attended St. Mary of the Mills School, Holly Springs High School then pursued his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance at UNC-Chapel Hill under Dr. Thomas Otten. During his school years, Kylo participated in various competitions and won both "All-District" and "All-State" awards in piano and trumpet competitions. Not until his senior year that he decided to pursue his love for music "Piano" through

the guidance of his mentor Ms. Olga - his piano teacher for a few years. She was instrumental and inspiration to why and how Kylo became such a great musician. He played music at Damascus Congregational Church and taught piano at Harmony Music Studio and have many private students at the same time. At a very young age, Kylo volunteered to play in Hospital, Nursing Homes, charity and fundraising events.

Music was Kylo's life, every beat of his heart plays a beautiful note and created a masterpiece for him to play, full of dynamics, feelings, and emotions. Through his music, he touched the hearts of many. He has a deep connection of himself and the notes upon the pages - a true musician.

Although it was a short piece (23 years) Kylo lived his life to the fullest. He left us with great and wonderful memories, full of love and happiness. Kylo came to this world as a "Blue Baby" in the hospital at Laurel MD where his mom used to work.

And at the end, even at the last hour of his life, he was still doing what he always loved to do - play music. As a true Tar Heel, he left this world at UNC Hospital and spent his last hour at the campus of UNC.

When looking up and see blue skies, imagine an angel watching over us. "Kylo is now our Angel in Heaven"

L.Beethoven

Andante favori, WoO 57


Piano Quartet  2


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