Vietnamese-born pianist Pham Minh Hoang has been given first prize at the Young Performers Awards (YPA) organised by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The 28-year-old was one of the best contestants to enter the final round of the YPA held in Melbourne, Australia, on October 12. Pham won the championship title after performing “Concerto No. 1” by Tchaikovsky together with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Born in Vietnam and growing up in Australia, he had been hailed by the Australia press as a Vietnamese origin music prodigy when he was just 5 years old. As a student of Australia’s renowned piano teacher Rita Reichman over the past ten years, Pham has won many big music prizes such as the Lev Vlassenko Award in 2005 and Best Australian Pianist in an International Piano Contest in Sydney in 2008. VOV