page_title: Ria Persad
section_title: Musical career
hierarchical_section_title: Ria Persad / Musical career
caption_attribution_description: English: Ria Persad Carlo, Wings Model Management
context_page_description: Ria Persad born on June 18, 1974, in Trinidad and Tobago, is a mathematician and a classical musician of Indian descent. She moved to the United States of America as a small child and was a child prodigy. She currently mentors technology companies and is a public speaker. She is signed as a fashion model, was the Ms. Tennessee titleholder in 2017 and the 2017 Ms. America National Choice Winner. In 2018, Persad was a finalist and titleholder and was granted the title “Mrs. Grand Universe" in a pageant organized by Mrs. Universe in Cebu, Philippines.
context_section_description: Persad first heard the sound of a piano aged 6 when her teacher played "When the Saints Go Marching In." Persad decided to teach herself to play the piano by ear. She eventually received piano lessons at the age of 9, and, at the age of 11, she was considering becoming a concert pianist. She was told that the only way she could survive as a concert pianist was to become the one-in-a-million who wins the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Discouraged, Persad pursued mathematics as a more viable career option. Throughout high school, she continued piano lessons at the New England Conservatory under Alice Canaday, scoring "high honors" on her piano examinations. She became the youngest member and piano accompanist of Princeton University's Glee Club. She also studied pipe organ, early instruments, and voice while in high school and college.
  For nearly 20 years, Persad did not pursue classical piano. In 2008, she decided to again take up her hobby of classical piano in the Tampa Bay area of Florida while still working as a mathematician, taking lessons under Linda Pointer and Russian virtuoso Eleonora Lvov. Persad won a series of local and state piano competitions and then became a prizewinner of the 2010 Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition and was Artist of the Month. She has given numerous piano performances in Italy and throughout the United States, performing for charities and benefits, and made her Carnegie Hall debut in April 2011.
  Persad has been featured in Nancy Williams' piano magazine, Grand Piano Passion, and also appears on Oprah Winfrey's website in a feature on "Turning Dreams Into Reality.".
  Persad has released an all-Yamaha CD Solace (2011), a historical journey through 250 years of lyrical classical music with some recordings from rare manuscripts never before commercially available.
  Persad was the winner of the 2010 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition.
caption: Ria Persad Carlo, October 2015.
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