My name is Erikas Sileika. I am a 16 year old Lithuanian-American male student of Whitney Young Magnet High School in Chicago, Illinois. I have been playing piano since I was 7 years old, and I have always been a classical pianist. Paradoxically my first ever piano teacher, Alec Watson, was a jazz pianist, but I suppose that every pianist starts at the same beginning of starting to read sheet music. A year later I switched to the teacher Weiven Ma, an extremely talented pianist from China, who now mentors me through the rigors of all the eras of classical music. Through her I’ve learned that pieces have infinite depth within every bar and it is up to us, the performers, to properly allow the pieces to flow through their phrases with the touch on our instruments.
Watch Erikas Herkus Šileika perform Polonaise in A Major Op. 40 by Friedrich Chopin on the piano for the 2024 Autumn Music Competition as part of the Charleston International Music Competition.