Announcing 2026 Teen Composer Award recipient Connor Mahon

We are absolutely delighted to announce this year’s recipient Connor Mahon!

Connor is receiving private lessons from composer mentor Alison Yun-Fei Jiang. With Alison’s guidance, Connor will compose a work for the core Continuum ensemble to be premiered in a pre-concert presentation at our concert Outside Hollow on April 11, 2026.

Connor Mahon began playing piano at age four and was composing his own pieces by age 6. Now 14, his compositions and performances garner widespread recognition. Most recently, the Sacora Trio, for which Connor is the pianist, was awarded the Grand Prize at the 2025 Canadian Music Competition for the 11 – 14 age category, while Connor won first place in piano and was the top-ranked soloist. Earlier in 2025, the Sacora Trio won the Mary Hildebrand Award from the ACNMP for their performance of Connor’s original piano trio. 

In 2024, Connor was a winner of the Florence Man & Bernard Sze Concerto Competition at the Phil & Eli Taylor Academy for Young Artists. His performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 featured an original cadenza he composed himself. Connor studies piano at the Taylor Academy in the studio of Michael Berkovsky, and compositions with Eugene Astapov.