Ya-Fei Chuang
Piano
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Acclaimed by critics in the United States and abroad for performances of stunning virtuosity, refinement and communicative power, pianist Ya-Fei Chuang has appeared at festivals including the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw with Christoph Eschenbach, at the European Music Festival (Stuttgart), the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Brahms-Tage, the Bach Festival in Leipzig (Germany), the Shannon Festival (Ireland), Oulu (Finland), Ravinia, Sarasota, the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Tanglewood, Celebrity Series in Boston, and the Oregon Bach Festival (USA). She has appeared with the Spectrum Concerts in Berlin, at the Fromm Foundation concerts at Harvard, at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge (USA), and performed in venues such as the Cologne and Berlin Philharmonien, Schauspielhaus Berlin, Gewandhaus Leipzig, National Philharmonic Hall Warsaw, and in Jordan Hall, Symphony Hall in Boston, as a duo partner with Kim Kashkashian, Robert Levin, and is a member of the chamber ensemble Mistral. Ya-Fei Chuang has appeared with the members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra. Her upcoming engagements include concerts in the Berlin Philharmonie, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, at the Piano Festival Ruhr, with the New York Philomusica, with the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston’s Symphony Hall, duo recital in Gardner Museum, in duo recitals with Steven Isserlis, performances in Asia, South America, and many returning engagements to festivals.
Prizewinner in the Cologne International Piano Competition at age 18, Ya-Fei Chuang first performed on television in her native Taiwan at the age of eight and gave her first public recital at age nine. She won first prize at the nationally televised ‘Genius vs. Genius’ Competition at age ten and first prize at the National Competition (Taiwan) at age eleven. The following year she received unprecedented fellowships and scholarships from several prestigious foundations in Germany and Taiwan that enabled her to pursue pre-college, undergraduate, and masters-level studies at the Freiburg Conservatory (Musikhochschule) with Rosa Sabater and Robert Levin, completing the six-year course of study in four. During this time she was awarded prizes including the Basel-Colmar-Freiburg Arts Prize and the Mendelssohn Prize in Freiburg. She subsequently concluded her German studies with Pavel Gililov, receiving a concert diploma (final degree) at the Musikhochschule of Cologne. In 1993 Ya-Fei Chuang moved to the United States, where she earned a graduate diploma at the New England Conservatory in Boston, with Russell Sherman. In master classes she has studied with Leon Fleisher, Gilbert Kalish, Vladimir Krainev, Elizabeth Leonskaja, John O’Conor, John Perry, Meneham Pressler, Gyorgy Sebok and Fanny Waterman. Ya-Fei Chuang is on the faculty of the Preparatory Division and the School of Continuing Education at the New England Conservatory, and teaches a piano seminar at the SCE for active participants and auditors, that invites guest artists including Prof. Christoph Wolff, Prof. Robert Levin from the Harvard University, Prof. Victor Rosenbaum, and the 2006 Pulitzer prizewinner Yehudi Wyner.
Ya-Fei Chuang’s mastery of the most challenging solo repertoire is complemented by extensive activities as a chamber musician and duo partner, and by her commitment to contemporary music, including world premieres of works by Stanley Walden and Thomas Oboe Lee. She is represented by ARTRA Artist Management of Chicago.
REVIEWS (in PDF format)