Israelis Stanislava Varshavsky and Diana Shapiro won Second place in Dec, 2005, at the 10th Dranoff International Two Piano Competition, held in Miami, Florida. Competing against the top piano duos in the world, the Israelis finished second with the pianists from Japan, Kuni Seo and Shin-ichiro Kato finishing first place Gold Medal. The Murray Dranoff Foundation was created in 1987 by Loretta Dranoff as a tribute to her late husband with whom she performed as an internationally recognized two piano team. The second prize, the Silver Medal comes with a $15,000 award. Another Israeli, Michael Tsalka from Tel Aviv finished 9th place with partner Katarzyna Marzec-Salwinski from Krakow, Poland.

Varshavski and Shapiro started playing together as a duo in 1998. In 2004 they won The Grand Prize at the 15th Piano Competition in Rome for duo piano and 1st prize for piano four hands. In 2004 they also won the first prize at the “Kol HaMusica” Young Artists Competition in Jerusalem. Between 1999 and 2003 they have won prizes in the Czech Republic, Miami, Jerusalem, Munich and Poland. The duo currently live in Cambridge, MA and study at the Longy School of Music in the class of American pianist Victor Rosenbaum. They maintain a website at http://www.piano-4-hands.com/