Akilan Sankaran

piano

Fifteen-year-old pianist Akilan Sankaran is a student of Lawrence Blind at the New Mexico School of Music. Akilan has performed at distinguished venues such as the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, Mazzoleni Hall in the Royal Conservatory of Music, and the Église de Verbier. He was the only junior pianist selected to attend the 2022 Verbier Festival as part of the Verbier Academy. He has had master classes with renowned musicians including Kirill Gerstein, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Stephen Kovacevich, Olga Kern, Gábor Tákacs-Nagy, Mathieu Herzog, Mihaela Martin, and Augustin Dumay. Akilan is a three-time winner of the Dennis Alexander Piano Competition, two-time winner of Professional Music Teachers of New Mexico’s State Honors Audition, and winner of the 2021 Jackie McGehee Young Artists’ Competition. Akilan won the New Mexico state Music Teachers National Association junior piano competition in 2021. He was also awarded the National Gold Medal by the Royal Conservatory of Music twice. He has been studying piano since he was 5 years old.

Akilan is currently in the tenth grade at Albuquerque Academy. Besides piano, Akilan plays the drums and enjoys being part of a piano trio group at Albuquerque Academy. He also loves singing and was part of New Mexico Educators Association’s All State Choir in 2018. He plays jazz piano in his school’s jazz band and was selected to the 2022 All-State Jazz Band.

Outside of piano, he also enjoys cross-country running and frequently participates in math and science contests. He won first place in the mathematics category of the Regeneron International Science fair in 2022, the Samueli Foundation prize in the 2021 Broadcom Masters competition, and first place in the New Mexico state Mathcounts competition. As the champion of New Mexico’s spelling bee competition, Akilan represented New Mexico in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2017.