CFA’s 2026 Kahn Award Winner and Finalists Plan to Use Their Prize Money to Make an Impact
Top prize of $20,000 goes to pianist Carlo Balmoria (CFA’26)
Pianist Carlo Balmoria (CFA’26) will use his $20,000 Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award to open a teaching studio in the rural Ohio town where his mother grew up. Photo by Cydney Scott
CFA’s 2026 Kahn Award Winner and Finalists Plan to Use Their Prize Money to Make an Impact
Top prize of $20,000 goes to pianist Carlo Balmoria (CFA’26)
This article was originally published in BU Today on April 21, 2026. By Joel Brown
EXCERPT
Pianist Carlo Balmoria (CFA’26) will use the $20,000 he received last week as the winner of this year’s Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award to change the lives of young musicians in rural Willard, Ohio, population 6,100.
The Kahn Award is given annually to a College of Fine Arts student completing their graduate or undergraduate studies to help them launch their career and make an impact on society. Five other finalists each received $5,000.
Balmoria grew up in Virginia and didn’t start playing piano until he was 13. He graduates from BU with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and will use the award to open a teaching studio in Willard and start a series of lectures and recitals.
“My mother grew up there, and it’s a place where I think there’s a lot of possibility for a more vibrant art scene in a very rural part of the country, which you don’t often see,” Balmoria says.
“I experienced firsthand what it’s like to grow up in a rural area with little access to music education and the arts, and how that can really impact someone,” he says. “I’m grateful that I’ve had so much support from my loved ones, and that I’ve been able to come to the place where I am today. Going forward, I just want to be able to give back.”
I experienced firsthand what it’s like to grow up in a rural area with little access to music education and the arts, and how that can really impact someone. I’m grateful that I’ve had so much support from my loved ones, and that I’ve been able to come to the place where I am today. Going forward, I just want to be able to give back.
The Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award Fund was established in 1985 with an endowed contribution of $1 million from Esther Kahn (Wheelock’55, Hon.’86). Finalists are chosen based on proposals they submit detailing how they would use the award to launch their careers, their concern for social issues, and their take on the artist’s role in contemporary society.
The awards were given out last week at a gala celebration at the CFA, featuring remarks from Young and awards judges Keith Lockhart (Hon.’04), conductor of the Boston Pops, and Catherine Morris, arts and creativity director of the Boston Foundation. A third judge, Ming Min Hui, executive director of the Boston Ballet, was unable to attend the ceremony.
“These are six really interesting individual stories, six people with goals that I know I didn’t have as well formed as they do, when I was 21 or 22,” Lockhart said at the event. “These are amazing plans, which does my heart good. They have to do with putting good things back into the world, and not just your own personal accomplishment. We need more people like you.”
read more on Carlo and the five finalists in bu today
Photos by Tom Tranfaglia