Aaron Petit (26) is an American pianist and composer in Portland, Oregon. In 2020, he completed his undergraduate degree in keyboard (piano) performance Magna Cum Laude at the University of Miami: Frost School of Music under the guidance of Santiago Rodriguez and Naoko Takao. Since early 2023, he has continued serious study with concert pianist Mark Salman in Seattle, Washington after a 3 year performance hiatus due to Covid-19 and starting a family.
Between 2014 and 2019, Aaron won 9 piano competitions in the US including the Gershwin International Music Competition in NYC, the Seattle Philharmonic Don Bushell Concerto Competition (runner-up), Metro Arts Van Buren Concerto Competition, and the Portland Young Pianists Festival Competition. In November of 2023, He won the MTNA-Steinway Young Artist Piano Competition for Oregon State is now a NW Division finalist to take place in December.
He has performed with orchestras in Seattle, Portland, Salem, Renton, and Puyallup since making his debut at age 15 with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1. In the 2016-17 season, he performed Chopin's e minor Piano Concerto with musicians of the Oregon Symphony and Oregon Ballet Theater Orchestras with Conductor Niel DePonte.
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His curiosity of the piano repertoire has led him to learn nearly 11 hours of solo piano music in the last 14 years. Aaron has performed many piano concertos with either second piano or orchestra including Rachmaninoff 3, Brahms 2, Chopin E minor, Tchaikovsky 1, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Prokofiev 1, Ravel G Major, Mendelssohn 1 and Mozart 22.
Aaron enjoyed a diverse pre-college musical education by attending Interlochen's Piano Institute, The Colburn Piano Seminar, Cazadero Music camp, and Young Musicians and Artists camp during the summers of his teenage years. He also studied at the Seattle Conservatory of Music and the Colburn School: Young Artists Academy in his teen years. His regular private teachers have included Mark Salman, Mark Westcott, Santiago Rodriquez, Naoko Takao, Chris Engbretson, Renato Fabbro and Peter Brownlee.
Between 2013 and 2019, Aaron participated in over 30 masterclasses and adjudications with internationally renown pianists and teachers including, Daniel Pollack, Vadym Kholodenko, Sean Chen, Ann Schein, Elizabeth Roe, Gloria Cheng, Angela Cheng, Nelita True, John Perry, William Chapman Nyaho, Lucinda Carver, Ory Shihor, Paul Roberts, Jacques Després, James Giles, Alvin Chow, Allan Park, and Jeffrey Biegel to name a few.
An avid teacher himself, Aaron has coached over 100 students since 2011. His long term ambition is to share his love of the great musical arts through teaching, performing, and composing for the world-wide stage.