At age 19, Malaysian pianist Magdalene Ho came to international attention after winning the 2023 Clara Haskil International Piano Competition. Formerly a pupil of Patsy Toh at the Purcell School, she currently studies with Dmitri Alexeev at the Royal College of Music as a Dasha Shenkman Scholar. She is also sponsored by the Weir Award via the Keyboard Charitable Trust.
In the 2025/26 season, Magdalene Ho will make her recital debut at the Tonhalle Zürich, as well as orchestral debuts with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Thomas Søndergård and the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Orchestra under Kornilios Michailidis. Other highlights of the season include a concert tour in the USA and performances at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with violinist Jeremias Pestalozzi, the Rheingau Festival, the Schumannfest, the Lille Piano(s) Festival, and the SWR Kultur Internationale Pianisten series in Mainz.
In the 2024/25 season, Magdalene performed at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, and the Théâtre de la Ville Paris with Marc and Emmanuel Coppey; at the Teatro alla Scala Milan with Ensemble “Giorgio Bernasconi” under Wilson Hermanto; as well as with the Orchestre de Suisse Romande under Cornelius Meister, the SWR Symphonieorchester under Kirill Karabits, and the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra under Rafael Payare.
At the Clara Haskil Competition, she also received the Audience Prize, the Young Critics’ Prize, and the Children’s Corner Prize. The following year, she was featured by Jed Distler in International Piano Magazine’s series “One to Watch.” In November 2024, she won the International German Piano Award. In August 2025, she received the Tabor Foundation Award, granted to selected pianists participating in the Verbier Festival Academy, where she took masterclasses with Minsoo Sohn, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, and Rena Shereshevskaya.
Since 2024, she has been mentored by the Vevey Spring Classic Festival, which has afforded her the opportunity to collaborate with musicians such as Daniel Müller-Schott, Simon Trčeski, and Pierre Génisson. She is also grateful to have been supported by the Lieven Foundation in Vienna, where this past summer she worked with Piotr Anderszewski, Elisso Virsaladze, Alon Goldstein, and Andreas Staier.
“While it’s hard to know where Magdalene Ho will be in 10 or 20 years, her passion for music, her commitment to her craft, her recreative brilliance and the communicative power beneath her modest stage demeanour all augur well for a successful and fulfilling career and life in music.”
Jed Distler, Gramophone