Jovianney Emmanuel Cruz

Jovianney Emmanuel Cruz is a classical pianist from the Philippines. He has won several international piano competitions during his competing career and he is in the forefront in a revival of classical music interest in the country.

Jovianney Cruz was born from a generation of musicians. His grandmother, Pura Lacson-Villanueva, was a pianist and the first female conductor in the Philippines. She was also the piano teacher of National Artist Lucrecia Kasilag. His mother, Lourdes Lacson Villanueva-Cruz, is a concert pianist who became frustrated when none of her nine children showed any interest in a musical career, though everyone took piano lessons in their early ages. Ten years after the birth of her ninth child, at 49 years old, Mrs. Cruz gave birth to her tenth and youngest child, Jovianney. This time, she made sure that he is going to be a concert pianist, and finally, the heir to the family's music legacy.

Mr. Cruz began his piano studies at the age of three from his mother, Lourdes. As a child prodigy at age 6, he was invited to give a command performance for the President of the Philippines at Malacañan Palace. By the age of 10, he made his orchestral debut with the Philippine Youth Orchestra after winning First Prize in the National Music Competitions for Young Artists Foundation. The Young Artists Foundation of the Philippines provided him a grant to pursue scholarships for piano studies abroad.

In 1980, after finishing grade school at Ateneo de Manila University Grade School, he moved to England to attend the Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, a school for gifted young children. The year after, he moved to New York City where he attended the Manhattan School of Music where he was a pupil of the eminent piano pedagogue Solomon Mikowsky.

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