The gifted Cincinnati pianist Kasey Shao, 17, received an artist grant of $5,000 from the Cincinnati MacDowell Society earlier this summer. For 108 years, the local chapter of the MacDowell Society has awarded artist grants in various disciplines.

The 2021 Presidential Scholar and Young Steinway Artist began piano at the age of 6 and is currently studying with Ran Dank, faculty member at CCM. When she was 12, she made her concerto debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nezet Seguin as the first place winner of the Albert M. Greenfield Concerto Competition.

Kasey has won numerous awards, and this year was a finalist in the prestigious Gina Bachauer Piano Competition. She has performed with the Blue Ash Montgomery Symphony Orchestra under Michael Chertok and the Louisville Orchestra under Teddy Abrams. Kasey has appeared in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center, Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Whitney Hall of the Kentucky Center.

Locally, she was also a 2021 and 2020 Matinee Musicale Nancy F. Walker Memorial Scholarship winner. A cum laude graduate from Walnut Hills High School, Kasey will attend Princeton University in the fall. She plans to study composition and piano.

The Cincinnati MacDowell Society was founded in 1913. It had significant ties with the MacDowell Colony, an artist residency in New Hampshire founded by American composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, Marian MacDowell. It was Marian’s friendship with Cincinnati philanthropist Mary Emery as well as Clara Baur and her niece Bertha Baur, — the founders of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music — that resulted in the society being formed here. For more about the society’s history and current activities, click here.