Polina Popova, a 15-year-old sophomore at Wilton High School in Connecticut, started playing piano when she was six and has been passionate about music ever since. She picked up the flute as a second instrument in middle school and sang as a soprano in her school’s choir. She was asked to accompany Middlebrook’s Combined Choir on the piano in sixth grade during their annual Winter Concert. In eighth grade, she was accepted into and performed with the Connecticut CMEA Western Region Choir. During the COVID epidemic, Polina collaborated with a local volunteer organization, “Weston Arts for a Cause” and participated as a piano performer in a series of virtual concerts for senior citizens confined to their living facilities due to quarantine measures. Over the years, Polina has received multiple awards from the Young Musicians Festival, held annually by The Schubert Club of Fairfield County in Connecticut. She takes every chance to perform and to collaborate with other musicians: would it be accompanying her high school choir on piano in four hands with another student or duet with a viola in front of a smaller audience of her local musical chapter. Polina is now a soprano 2 in Chamber Singers, her high school Select Choir, a proud member of Tri-M Honors Society, and an aspiring young pianist who continues to develop her musical skills under the enlightening instruction and guidance of her incredible musical teacher of almost a decade, Tatyana Pikayzen.
You can find Polina’s 20th Century Music Competition 2024 piano performance here.