Chengyi Tang ’27 Wins 2026 Rudolph Polk Memorial Award in Music

The bridge between STEM and the arts at The Claremont Colleges was highlighted on April 11 at auditions for the prestigious Rudolph Polk Memorial Award in Music. Harvey Mudd College computer science and physics major Chengyi Tang ’27 was named the winner of the Polk Award, while fellow Mudder and engineering major Lucy Wen-Xin Will ’28 received an honorable mention.

Both pianists study under the tutelage of Hao Huang, the Bessie and Cecil Frankel Endowed Chair in Music at Scripps College. Huang praised the duo’s dedication, noting that their success is a testament to months of rigorous preparation. “Both Chengyi and Lucy are talented, devoted young pianists who have attained a really high level of musical as well as technical expertise as performers,” said Huang. “Their repertoire spanned different time periods, style genres and national identities. The music played by these outstanding young pianists was international in scope.”

Tang, who received a $1,200 prize intended for further musical study, called Professor Huang “the most influential person” in his musical development. “He taught me how to feel the music instead of just playing the note. I really developed my musicality studying from him.”

For Tang, the Polk Award—established by legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz to honor filmmaker and impresario Rudolph Polk— follows another significant achievement. Having also won this year’s Claremont Concert Orchestra (CCO) Concerto Competition, Tang is set to perform Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the CCO at Garrison Theater on May 3.

Tang’s audition program reflected his intellectual and cultural curiosity:

• J.S. Bach: Fuga a 3 Sogetti from The Art of Fugue. Tang describes the unfinished piece as a “one-person quartet” that opens space for the imagination.
• Frédéric Chopin: Ballade No. 4. A technical and emotional piece that Tang has studied since childhood; he started playing the piano at age 3.
• Zhang Zhao: Pi Huang. An experimental work inspired by Beijing Opera. “I chose it because I wanted to bring something of my own cultural background into the audition,” Tang said.

As a student at Harvey Mudd, Tang’s interests in music and science converge in the Music Information Retrieval Lab, where Tang works with TJ Tsai, associate professor of engineering, on signal processing algorithms and machine learning models involving music. Tang practices the piano every day. “Piano is a relaxing time for me, so it’s not an additional stress,” he said. While Tang aims for a research career in computer science “with strong social impacts,” the piano remains “indispensable,” and he is considering music school.

Will, an engineering major with an interest in the aerospace industry, impressed the judges with a program that showcased a wide range of musical time periods and techniques. Her audition included Mozart’s Sonata No. 8 in A Minor, Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2, Liebermann’s Nocturne Op. 38 No. 4, and the fourth movement of Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2.

She credits her musical growth to a lineage of mentors. “I’ve benefited from having amazing teachers in school and at summer music festivals who have always inspired me to play at my best,” she said. Much like Tang, Will uses the piano as an essential outlet to balance her rigorous coursework.