2026 Arkady Fomin Scholarship Fund recipient
Mark Chia currently studies under Professor Boris Kuschnir in Vienna, as a student of Kunst- Universität Graz. He started playing the violin at age three, and from the age of five he was under the tutelage of Min Lee in Singapore. Mark has won top prizes at a number of competitions, including the Grunewald International Music Competition (2024), Il Piccolo Violino Magico International Competition (2022), and the Leonid Kogan International Competition for Young Violinists (2021).
In 2023, Mark was one of five young violinists selected to perform at the Mini Violini event of the international classical music competition Concours Musical Internationale de Montréal (CMIM), as well as at the CMIM Benefit Event. He has performed as a soloist in concerts with the Accademia d’Archi Arrigoni orchestra directed by Domenico Mason in Italy and Austria in 2023, as well as with the Geringas Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Maestro David Geringas in the Berlin Philharmonie in 2024. Mark had his first chamber music experience participating in the Singapore Chamber Music Festival (2024) and that March he performed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons “L’Inverno (Winter)” with the Resound Collective chamber orchestra in Singapore. Other public performances include the Asia Tech X Singapore Summit Opening Gala Dinner (2025) alongside his teacher Min Lee, and at the Singapore President’s Challenge Charity Concert (2025) with Aleksey Igudesman.
Mark has further developed his artistry through masterclasses with distinguished musicians and pedagogues including Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Boris Garlitsky, Vadim Gluzman, Evgeny Sinaiski, Henning Kraggerud, So-Ock Kim, Kerson Leong and Robin Wilson. Beyond performance, Mark does composing and improvisation and is mentored by Aleksey Igudesman and Tristan Schulze. Outside music, he enjoys reading, chess and table tennis, and has a wide interest and curiosity in many things