CLAUDIA HOCA(4th year)(Collaborative Piano) is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where her teachers included Eleanor Sokoloff and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. She has a Master’s Degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo,where she studied with Leo Smit. A Fulbright grant enabled her to return to her native Austria,where she pursued advanced studies under Bruno Seidlhofer. Ms. Hoca is the recipient of numerous awards, including top prizes in the Chopin Young Pianist Competition and the Washington International Bach Competition. While still a teenager, she appeared with the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic in a Young People’s Concert, broadcast live on network television. She has played over 20 different concertos with the Buffalo Philharmonic under conductors Semyon Bychkov, Christopher Keene,Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Hermann Michael,Carlos Kalmar, and Maximiano Valdes, among others.She has appeared in recital in the United States and abroad and is much sought after as a chamber music collaborator. She has appeared in recital in the United States and abroad and is much sought after as a chamber music collaborator. Her recordings include a premier recording of the piano music of Leo Smit on the Spectrum label and two collaborations with Philharmonia Virtuosi of New York under the direction of Richard Kapp:Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Petite Symphonie Concertante and Poulenc’s Aubade, issued as an unedited live performance,both available on the Essay label.She is often seen on the Kleinhans Stage as orchestral pianist with the BPO and has for the past five summers been the orchestral pianist of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.