Tony DeSare performs with infectious joy, wry playfulness, and robust musicality. Named a “Rising Star Male Vocalist” in DownBeat magazine, DeSare has garnered critical and popular acclaim for his concert performances throughout North America and abroad. From jazz clubs to Carnegie Hall to Las Vegas headlining with Don Rickles and major symphony orchestras, DeSare has brought his fresh take on old-school class around the globe. DeSare has four top ten Billboard jazz albums and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, NPR, A Prairie Home Companion, and the Today Show. His music has been posted by social media celebrity juggernaut, George Takei, and DeSare has also collaborated with YouTube icons Postmodern Jukebox. DeSare can be seen on Hulu’s Godfather of Harlem (season 3/Ep 9) performing the Sinatra classic “That’s Life.” 

​DeSare’s “Lush Life” recording debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Chart and he released Song Diaries Vol. 2 in early 2022. His latest singles, available on all streaming platforms, include “Two Sleepy People,” “Let’s Do It,” and “My Blue Heaven.”  
 
Beyond his well-regarded turns as a singer/pianist, DeSare is also an accomplished composer. He not only won first place in the USA Songwriting Contest but has written the theme song for the motion picture My Date with Drew, several broadcast commercials, and has composed the full soundtracks for the Hallmark Channel’s Love Always, Santa, Lifetime’s Nanny Nightmare and A Welcome Home Christmas. His sound is romantic, swinging, and sensual, but what sets DeSare apart is his ability to write original material that sounds fresh and contemporary while paying homage to the Great American Songbook. His compositions include a wide range of tender, funny, and soulful sounds that can be found on his top-selling recordings.

DeSare’s forthcoming appearances this season include The Cleveland Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Seattle Symphony, The Phoenix Symphony, Grand Teton Music Festival, Rockport Music, and Birdland Theatre.

New recordings, originals, and videos of standards are released regularly on DeSare’s YouTube channel, Apple Music, and Spotify. Follow Tony on Facebook, and Instagram, and subscribe on YouTube to stay connected.

Tony DeSare is a Yamaha Artist. For more information, visit https://www.tonydesare.com/.

American pianist Clayton Stephenson’s love for music is immediately apparent in his joyous charisma onstage, expressive power, and natural ease at the instrument. Hailed for “extraordinary narrative and poetic gifts” and interpretations that are “fresh, incisive and characterfully alive” (Gramophone), he is committed to making an impact on the world through his music-making.

Growing up in New York City, Clayton started piano lessons at age 7 and was accepted into the Juilliard Outreach Music Advancement Program for underprivileged children the next year, where he attended numerous student recitals and fell in love with music. At the age of 10 he advanced to Juilliard’s elite Pre-College program with the help of his teacher, Beth Nam. At Juilliard he studied with Matti Raekallio, Hung-Kuang Chen and Ernest Barretta. Clayton practiced on a synthesizer at home until he found an old upright piano on the street that an elementary school had thrown away; that would become his practice piano for the next six years, until the Lang Lang Foundation donated a new piano to him when he was 17.

He credits the generous support of community programs with providing him musical inspiration and resources along the way. As he describes it, the “3rd Street Music School jump-started my music education; the Young People’s Choir taught me phrasing and voicing; the Juilliard Outreach Music Advancement Program introduced me to formal and rigorous piano training, which enabled me to get into Juilliard Pre-College; the Morningside Music Bridge validated my talent and elevated my self-confidence; the Boy’s Club of New York exposed me to jazz; and the Lang Lang Foundation brought me to stages worldwide and transformed me from a piano student to a young artist.”

Recent and upcoming highlights include concertos with the Houston, North Carolina, and Cincinnati Symphonies; festival appearances at Grand Teton, Grant Park, and Tippet Rise; recitals at Washington Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center, Foundation Louis Vuitton, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; gala performances with the New York and Las Vegas Philharmonics; and collaborations with violinists Nikki and Timothy Chooi. He also joins the Hartford Symphony Orchestra as 2024–2025 Artist-in-Residence.

Clayton graduated from the Harvard-New England Conservatory (NEC) dual degree program in spring 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in economics at Harvard and a master’s degree in piano performance at NEC under Wha Kyung Byun. In addition to being the first Black finalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2024,won the inaugural Nina Simone Piano Competition in 2023, and is a 2025 Sphinx Medal of Excellence honoree.

Among his generation of concert artists, pianist Awadagin Pratt is acclaimed for his musical insight and intensely involving performances in recitals and with symphony orchestras.

He was the first student in the Peabody Conservatory of Music’s history to receive diplomas in three performance areas (piano, violin and conducting). He also received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Johns Hopkins, was granted an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan University, and won both the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Pratt has played in performances across the US, including at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, the NJ Performing Arts Center, and the White House. His many orchestral performances include appearances with the New York Philharmonic; Minnesota Orchestra; and the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis, National, Detroit, and New Jersey symphonies among many others. Summer festival engagements include appearances at Ravinia, Blossom, Wolftrap, Caramoor, and Aspen as well as the Hollywood Bowl. Internationally, Mr. Pratt has toured Japan four times and performed in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Israel, Columbia, and South Africa.

Recent and upcoming appearances include recital engagements in Baltimore, La Jolla, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Ravinia, Lewes, Delaware, Duke University, and Carnegie Hall for the Naumburg Foundation as well as with the orchestras of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, North Carolina, Utah, Richmond, Grand Rapids, Memphis, Fresno, Winston-Salem, New Mexico, Rockford, IL and Springfield, OH. He also serves on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina where he coaches chamber music, teaches individual pianists, and performs chamber music and concertos with the festival orchestra.

An experienced conductor, Mr. Pratt has conducted programs with the Toledo, New Mexico, Vancouver WA, Winston-Salem, Santa Fe, and Prince George County symphonies; the Northwest Sinfonietta; the Concertante di Chicago; and several orchestras in Japan.

Mr. Pratt is frequently invited to participate on international competition juries, such as the Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Israel, the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Minnesota e-Competition, the Unisa International Piano Competition in International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz in the Ukraine.

Awadagin Pratt is currently a Professor of Piano at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. He also served as the Artistic Director of the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati and is currently the Artistic Director of the Art of the Piano Festival at CCM.

Hailed by the critics as Monsieur 100,000 Volts, pianist Andreas Boyde’s performances have electrified audiences worldwide. His recitals in renowned concert venues and appearances as soloist with such orchestras as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Radio Orchestra, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, the Zürich Kammerorchester, the Miami Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Hallé Orchestra Manchester, the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra, the Dresdner Sinfoniker, the London Mozart Players, the Berliner Symphoniker and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra have secured Boyde’s reputation as an esteemed performing artist.

Boyde has concertised internationally in Austria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA and Vietnam. Venues where he has appeared to acclaim include Berlin Philharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall London, Cologne Philharmonic Hall, Zürich Tonhalle, Munich Herkulessaal, Symphony Hall Birmingham, Berlin Konzerthaus, Munich Philharmonic Hall, Hamburg Musikhalle, Teatro Municipal Santiago de Chile, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Prinzregenten Theatre and Pierpont Morgan Library New York.

For the season 2018/19, Andreas Boyde was Artist in Residence of the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt.

Boyde recorded the complete solo piano works by Johannes Brahms produced by OehmsClassics, the repertoire now being performed in a cycle. Boyde’s extensive CD recordings receive five star reviews from leading music magazines, praising his interpretations “a stroke of genius” (Fono Forum, Germany). He enjoys a close association with German radio established by frequent broadcasts and productions.

The sought-after pianist’s wide-ranging repertoire encompasses all major areas of the piano literature. Also committed to contemporary music he gave the European premiere of Paul Schoenfield’s Piano Concerto Four Parables, as well as the first performance of John Pickard’s Piano Concerto, which is dedicated to him. Boyde’s musicological interests are demonstrated in his reconstruction of the ‘Schubert’ Variations by Robert Schumann, now published by Hofmeister Leipzig. It is a work that has enjoyed great international acclaim since its 2000 premiere in New York by Andreas Boyde at the Pierpont Morgan Library. He is also Henle Artist and Contributor.

In 2017, Andreas Boyde’s orchestral version of Schumann’s Waldszenen was premiered by the Dresdner Kapellsolisten at the new Kulturpalast Dresden hall, the work now being published by Edition Peters.

Andreas Boyde was born in Oschatz, Germany, where he entered the Book of Honour in 2012. He studied with Christa Holzweißig and Amadeus Webersinke in Dresden and subsequently with James Gibb in London at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. His mentor and promoter Malcolm Frager also proved a major influence.

Andreas Boyde lives in London.

Lauded as “exquisite” by The Philadelphia Inquirer and “a pianist of sterling artistry” by Gramophone, GRAMMY Award winning pianist Michelle Cann is one of the most sought-after artists of her generation. Recent engagements include appearances with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo. She is a recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and she served as the inaugural Christel DeHaan Artistic Partner of the American Piano Awards.

Highlights of Cann’s 2025-26 season include appearances with the Colorado Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and Ireland’s National Symphony Orchestra. She also performs the world premiere of a new piano concerto by Valerie Coleman with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. Her recital appearances include Stanford Live, Music Toronto, Chamber Music Detroit, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Spivey Hall, and a recital tour in China.

Recognized as a leading interpreter of the piano music of Florence Price, Cann performed the New York City premiere of Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with The Dream Unfinished Orchestra in July 2016 and the Philadelphia premiere with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin in February 2021. Her recording of the concerto with the New York Youth Symphony won a GRAMMY Award in 2023 for Best Orchestral Performance. She won a GRAMMY Award in 2025 for Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price, recorded with soprano Karen Slack, which features 19 unpublished songs composed by Price. Her acclaimed debut solo album Revival, featuring music by Price and Margaret Bonds, was released in May 2023 on the Curtis Studio label. She has also recorded two Price piano quintets with the Catalyst Quartet as a part of the quartet’s UNCOVERED series. A champion of emerging talent, Cann and cellist Tommy Mesa recorded Our Stories, an album of new works by five living composers of color, which was released in November 2023.

A celebrated chamber musician, Cann has collaborated with leading artists including the Catalyst, Dover, and Juilliard string quartets, Imani Winds, violinists Timothy and Nikki Chooi, soprano Karen Slack, and mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. She regularly performs duo piano repertoire with her sister, pianist Kimberly Cann, as the Cann Duo. She has appeared as co-host and collaborative pianist with NPR’s From The Top, collaborating with actor/conductor Damon Gupton, violinist Leila Josefowicz, and violinist and MacArthur Fellow Vijay Gupta. Cann’s numerous media appearances include Performance Today, PBS Great Performances’ Now Hear This, and Living the Classical Life.

Embracing a dual role as performer and pedagogue, Cann is frequently invited to teach master classes, give lecture-demonstrations, and lead teaching residencies. Recent residencies include the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and the National Conference of the Music Teachers National Association. She has recorded lessons for tonebase, the popular piano lesson platform. She has also served on the juries of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Kauffman Music Center International Youth Piano Competition, and the piano competition of the Music Academy of the West.

Cann holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Paul Schenly and Dr. Daniel Shapiro, and an Artist’s Diploma from Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Robert McDonald. She joined the Curtis piano faculty in 2020 as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies. She is also on the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.

One of the most sought-after soloists in his generation of young American musicians, the pianist Orion Weiss has performed with the major American orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic. His deeply felt and exceptionally crafted performances go far beyond his technical mastery and have won him worldwide acclaim.

His 2018-19 season sees him beginning that season with the Lucerne Festival and ending with the Minnesota Orchestra, with performances for the Denver Friends of Chamber Music, the University of Iowa, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Albany Symphony, the Kennedy Center’s Fortas Series, the 92nd Street Y, and the Broad Stage in between. In 2017-18 Orion performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, toured with James Ehnes, and soloed with twelve orchestras around the United States. Other highlights of recent seasons include his third performance with the Chicago Symphony, a North American tour with the world-famous Salzburg Marionette Theater in a performance of Debussy’s La Boîte à Joujoux, the release of his recording of Christopher Rouse’s Seeing, and recordings of the complete Gershwin works for piano and orchestra with his longtime collaborators the Buffalo Philharmonic and JoAnn Falletta.

Named the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year in September 2010, in the summer of 2011 Weiss made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood as a last-minute replacement for Leon Fleisher. In recent seasons, he has also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and in duo summer concerts with the New York Philharmonic at both Lincoln Center and the Bravo! Vail Valley Festival. In 2005, he toured Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Itzhak Perlman.

Also known for his affinity and enthusiasm for chamber music, Weiss performs regularly with the violinists Augustin Hadelich, William Hagen, Benjamin Beilman, James Ehnes, and Arnaud Sussman; the pianist Shai Wosner; and the cellist Julie Albers; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Weiss has appeared across the U.S. at venues and festivals including Lincoln Center, the Ravinia Festival, Sheldon Concert Hall, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Chamber Music Northwest, the Bard Music Festival, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, and Spivey Hall. He won the 2005 William Petschek Recital Award at Juilliard, and made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall that April. Also in 2005 he made his European debut in a recital at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. He was a member of the Chamber Music Society Two program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 2002-2004, which included his appearance in the opening concert of the Society’s 2002-2003 season at Alice Tully Hall performing Ravel’s La Valse with Shai Wosner.

Weiss’s impressive list of awards includesthe Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at the Juilliard School and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. A native of Lyndhurst, OH, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Paul Schenly, Daniel Shapiro, Sergei Babayan, Kathryn Brown, and Edith Reed. In February of 1999, Weiss made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. In March 1999, with less than 24 hours’ notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He was immediately invited to return to the Orchestra for a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto in October 1999. In 2004, he graduated from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax.

Claire Huangci, the child prodigy of the time, whose extraordinary virtuosity astonished the piano world earlier, has grown into a mature artist. Especially with Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, her creative interpretations are fresh and convincing. (Jury-Statement, 1st prize of the Geza Anda Competition 2018)

The young American pianist of Chinese descent, winner of the first prize and Mozart Prize at the 2018 Geza Anda Competition, has succeeded in establishing herself as a highly respected artist, captivating audiences with her “radiant virtuosity, artistic sensitivity, keen interactive sense and subtle auditory dramaturgy” (Salzburger Nachrichten).

Claire Huangci began her international career at the age of nine with grants, concert performances, and prizes, becoming the youngest participant to receive a second prize at the International ARD Music Competition in 2011. Only in her later teenage years did she finally feel more and more that this instrument was to be her vocation. She received significant input from her teachers Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia before studying under Arie Vardi at the University of Music, Drama, and Media in Hanover. She has assisted Professor Vardi since her graduation in spring 2016.

Chopin’s music gave Claire Huangci her artistic breakthrough when she won first prizes at the Chopin Competitions in Darmstadt in 2009, as well as in Miami in 2010. She has since proved her great versatility with an unusually broad repertoire, which includes a large number of contemporary works. Claire Huangci has performed in solo recitals and as a partner with international orchestras such as the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (under Sir Roger Norrington), Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, Münchner Kammerorchester, China Philharmonic Orchestra and Vancouver, Santa Fe and Moscow Radio Symphonies at international concert venues that include the Carnegie Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, Konzerthaus Berlin, Gasteig Munich, Gewandhaus Leipzig, la Salle Cortot, Oji Hall Tokyo and the Symphony Hall in Osaka. She has also made guest appearances at festivals such as the Kissinger Sommer, Verbier Festival, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, and the Schwetzinger SWR Festival.

After a busy last season with highlights including solo debuts at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Klavier Festival Ruhr, and a tour through China with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Cornelius Meister, she begins the 18/19 season with concerts with the Bern Symphony orchestra under Mario Venzago. Further appearances will lead her to the Vienna Konzerthaus, Franz Liszt Akademie Budapest, Zurich Tonhalle, Tokyo Suntory Hall, and Washington DC Smithsonian Institute.

After the releases of her debut CD with solo works of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and her prize-winning double album of Scarlatti sonatas, (German Record Critics‘ Award and Gramophone Editors Choice) she released a celebrating recording of the complete Chopin nocturnes in Spring 2017.

“Do we need another recording of Chopin’s Nocturnes? Not really! But when one hears this brand new double-CD from Claire Huangci, the answer is yes!” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) Just in time for the start of the new season, Claire will release her fourth solo album with Berlin Classics/Edel featuring the complete preludes of Sergey Rachmaninov.

Pianist Terrence Wilson has established a reputation as one of today’s most gifted instrumentalists. In the United States he has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Washington, DC (National Symphony), San Francisco, St. Louis, and with the orchestras of Cleveland, Minnesota, and Philadelphia and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Among the conductors with whom he has worked are Christoph Eschenbach, Alan Gilbert, Neeme Jarvi, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Robert Spano, Yuri Temirkanov, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Gunther Herbig.

Abroad, Terrence Wilson has played concerti with such ensembles as the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in Switzerland, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In 2005, he toured Spain with the Baltimore Symphony with Yuri Temirkanov conducting.

An active recitalist, Terrence Wilson made his New York City recital debut at the 92nd Street Y, and his Washington, DC recital debut at the Kennedy Center. In Europe, he has given recitals at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, and at the Louvre in Paris. He has given recitals at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, and for the La Jolla Chamber Music Society. An avid chamber musician, he performs regularly with the Ritz Chamber Players. Festival appearances include the Blossom Festival, Tanglewood, and Wolf Trap.

During the 2017-2018 season, Terrence Wilson appears as guest soloist with (among others) the Alabama Symphony and makes his debut with the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He also makes his debut with the Richmond Symphony in performances of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. Other highlights of the season include a return appearance with the New Jersey Symphony, chamber music performances with the Ritz Chamber Players in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as recitals of all of Rachmaninoff’s Etudes-Tableaux, op. 33 & 39 in advance of a recording project of these sets.

Among the projects for the 2018-2019 season is the commission of a new solo piano work by American composer Michael Daugherty.

Terrence Wilson has received numerous awards and prizes, including the SONY ES Award for Musical Excellence, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Juilliard Petschek Award. He has also been featured on several radio and television broadcasts, including NPR’s Performance Today, WQXR radio in New York, and programs on the BRAVO Network, the Arts & Entertainment Network, and public television. In 2011, Wilson was nominated for a GRAMMY in the category of “Best Instrumental Soloist With an Orchestra” for his (world premiere) recording with the Nashville Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero of Michael Daugherty’s Deus ex Machina for piano and orchestra – which was written for Wilson in 2007.

Terrence Wilson is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky. He has also enjoyed the invaluable mentorship of the Romanian pianist Zitta Zohar. A native of the Bronx, he resides in Montclair, New Jersey.

Infusing “intoxicating grace” with “exceptional musicality” and “inconceivable virtuosity,” pianist Fei-Fei conjures a special and undeniable connectivity with her audiences that brings joy, passion, and deep musical understanding (Badische Neueste Nachrichten). Her engaging and endearing personality shines through in every note, word, and expression—whether performing as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician on world stages or as an advocate for community engagement.

“Sporting a naturally gracious charm and stage presence,” Fei-Fei has “shared her musical passions unstintingly” around the globe (Peninsula Review). Recent projects include her role as artist-in-residence with the Baden-Baden Philharmonic touring in Germany, a Carnegie Hall performance and tour of Spain with the New York Youth Symphony, a cross-disciplinary collaboration with Ballet Arkansas, a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at Lincoln Center with the Pegasus Symphony, a 19-city tour of China with the Aletheia Piano Trio (of which she is a founding member), and performances of lesser-represented repertoire, including concertos by Leroy Anderson, Florence Price, Clara Schumann, and Xiaogang Ye.

Additional concerto highlights include performances with the Fort Worth Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic, Spokane Symphony, Corpus Christi Symphony, Austin Symphony, Denver Philharmonic, Anchorage Symphony, and the Juilliard Orchestra. Internationally, she has performed with Canada’s Calgary Philharmonic, Germany’s Rostock and Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestras, and in China with the Shenzhen Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and China National Symphony Orchestras.

Fei-Fei was featured prominently as a Cliburn finalist in the documentary film, Virtuosity, about the 2013 Cliburn Competition, which premiered on PBS in August 2015. Deeply committed to sharing her joy for music and connecting with communities, Fei-Fei frequently engages students and community audiences through school and outreach concerts and masterclasses.

Born in Shenzhen, Fei-Fei began piano lessons at the age of 5. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she studied with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky, and is currently pursing Doctoral of Musical Arts degree with pianist Yefim Bronfman at Manhattan School of Music. Fei-Fei is also a member of the piano faculty at John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University and teaching associate to Yefim Bronfman at Manhattan School of Music beginning in Fall 2023.
For more information, please visit Fei-Fei’s Cliburn Agency page here.

Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (San Francisco Classical Voice), pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism, and interpretive sensitivity. As a Van Cliburn International Piano Competition silver medalist and Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, Yang showcases her colorful musical personality in solo recitals and collaborations with the world’s top orchestras and chamber musicians.

Yang came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant at 19 years old, she took home two additional awards: the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the Takàcs Quartet) and the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for Best Performance of a New Work.

Since her spectacular debut, she has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). She has performed as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, the Baltimore, Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Sydney, and Toronto symphony orchestras, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the BBC Philharmonic (among many others), working with such distinguished conductors as Edo de Waart, Lorin Maazel, James Conlon, Manfred Honeck, Jacques Lacombe, Leonard Slatkin, David Robertson, Bramwell Tovey, Peter Oundjian, and Jaap van Zweden. In recital, Yang has taken the stage at New York’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum; the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Chicago’s Symphony Hall; and Zurich’s Tonhalle.

Highlights of Yang’s 2016/17 season include her debuts with the Long Beach Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and San Diego Symphony, recitals in Anchorage, Beverly Hills, Cincinnati, Denver, Nashville, Seattle, and at Spivey Hall in Georgia, and concerts with her frequent duo partner, violinist Augustin Hadelich, in Dallas, New York City, Saint Paul, San Francisco, and more. She will also perform at Chamber Music International in Dallas with the Alexander String Quartet, with whom she has recorded the Brahms and Schumann Piano Quintets. Fall marks the release of her first collaboration with Hadelich for Avie Records, and the world premiere recording of Michael Torke’s Piano Concerto, created expressly for her and commissioned by the Albany Symphony. Additional appearances showcasing her vast repertoire include performances as orchestral soloist in Arizona, California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas. In Summer 2016 she appeared at the festivals of Aspen, Brevard, Lake Tahoe, Steamboat Springs and Sun Valley.

Recent season highlights include Yang’s debut with New Jersey Symphony on the occasion of Jacques Lacombe’s last concert as Music Director, multiple returns to the New York Philharmonic, Royal Flemish Philharmonic and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin debuts, UK debut in the Cambridge International Piano Series, Montreal debut with I Musici de Montréal with Jean-Marie Zeitouni, and Pittsburgh Symphony debut playing Schumann’s Concerto under music director Manfred Honeck. She concluded a five-year Rachmaninoff cycle with de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony, to which she brought “an enormous palette of colors, and tremendous emotional depth” (Milwaukee Sentinel Journal); joined the Takács Quartet for Dvořák in Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series; and impressed the New York Times with her “vivid and beautiful playing” of Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with members of the Emerson String Quartet at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center.

In 2014, Yang “demonstrated impressive gifts” (New York Times) with a trio of album releases: her second solo disc for Avie Records, Wild Dreams, on which she plays Schumann, Bartók, Hindemith, Rachmaninoff, and arrangements by Earl Wild; a pairing of the Brahms and Schumann Piano Quintets with the Alexander Quartet; and a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Denmark’s Odense Symphony Orchestra that International Record Review called “hugely enjoyable, beautifully shaped … a performance that marks her out as an enormous talent.” Of her 2011 debut album for Avie Records, Collage, featuring works by Scarlatti, Liebermann, Debussy, Currier, and Schumann, Gramophone praised her “imaginative programming” and “beautifully atmospheric playing.”

Born in 1986 in Seoul, South Korea, Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at the age of four. She quickly took to the instrument, which she received as a birthday present, and over the next few years won several national piano competitions in her native country. By the age of ten, she had entered the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and went on to make a number of concerto and recital appearances in Seoul and Daejeon. In 1997, Yang moved to the United States to begin studies at the pre-college division of the Juilliard School with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky. During her first year at Juilliard, Yang won the pre-college division Concerto Competition, resulting in a performance of Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in D with the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra. After winning the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Student Competition, she performed Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with that orchestra at just twelve years old. She graduated from Juilliard with special honor as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize, and in 2011 she won its 30th Annual William A. Petschek Piano Recital Award.

Yang made her celebrated New York Philharmonic debut with Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall in November 2006 and performed on the orchestra’s tour of Asia, making a triumphant return to her hometown of Seoul, South Korea. Subsequent appearances with the Philharmonic included the opening night of the Leonard Bernstein Festival in September 2008, at the special request of Maazel in his final season as music director. The New York Times pronounced her performance in Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety a “knockout.”

Yang appears in the film In the Heart of Music, a documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She is a Steinway artist.

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Photo credit: KT Kim