Julian Harnish is living in a pretty exciting week.

At this moment he is on his way to China with his family. The Bluffton family will be there until mid-June while Julian’s father, Stephen, is on a Bluffton University sabbatical.

That’s not the only exciting thing that happened to the BHS junior in the past five days. On April 20, he finished in second place in the high school piano division of the 2013 Young Artists’ Competition sponsored by the Friends of the (Lima) Symphony.

In the competition, Harnish performed Grieg’s “Piano Concerto in A minor.” Seven high school pianists competed. Two advanced to a final round, including Harnish. There he had scores of 19 out of 20 possible points from one judge and 18 of 20 from the second judge.

In addition to placing second overall, a prize worth $200, he received The Hurless Award, a cash prize of $350.

“Including my work with the high school musical this spring, I’ve played the piano between three and four hours a day for the past two to three months,” said Harnish. “The school musical actually helped me get more serious for the Lima competition.”

He has played piano since kindergarten. Since junior high he has taken lessons from Dr. Lucia Unrau, professor of music at Bluffton University.

“Julian is clearly a very talented young man, but his intelligence, discipline and hard work is what makes him such a fine musician,” she said about him.

Wanda Pannabecker was his teacher from elementary to seventh grade. “Julian always came well prepared for his lessons and he seemed to grasp everything right away,” Pannabecker said about her former student.

Harnish played the Grieg piece from memory in the competition. “It is about 13 minutes long with full orchestration,” he said. “And, yes, I can play it in my sleep. My strategy for the final week coming up to the competition was to have the piece entirely in my head.”

While the piano is his favorite instrument, he also plays cello, which he started in the fourth grade. In fifth grade he picked up the oboe. Then, as a high school freshman he traded the oboe for the bassoon. In marching band he plays the bass drum.

While juggling his piano lessons, preparing for the Lima competition, and trying to finish his high school classes early so he could go to China, this semester he took Calculus II, a post-secondary class at Bluffton University. His high school schedule included chemistry, Spanish III, American government and college prep English.

One other Bluffton High School student entered the Young Artists Competition. Mark Bixel, a BHS freshman, whose teacher is Kathleen Price, performed Rachmaninoff’s “Concerto Op. 18, No. 2.”