Sunday, January 25, 2015
The distinguished Taiwanese pianist CHING-YUN HU is recognized and acclaimed world-wide for her dazzling technique, deeply probing musicality and directly communicative performance style.
Ching-Yun Hu was named a winner of the 2009 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. In 2008, she captured the top prize and the Audience Favorite Prize at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, resulting in a seven-city tour across Israel and a special invitation from the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #4 on only a week’s notice. Subsequently, her career has flourished with a host of engagements on five continents.
Highlights of Ching-Yun Hu’s current season include debuts with New York’s Massapequa Philharmonic Orchestra and the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, return performances with Brazil’s Orquestra Filarmônica do Espírito Santo and Orquestra Petrobras Sinfônica and Taiwan’s Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, as well as solo recitals and chamber music collaborations in several cities in Taiwan and China and a re-engagement with the Taipei Chinese Orchestra for an appearance at the Macau International Music Festival.
Ching-Yun Hu made her debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1999. She has also been guest soloist with the Aspen Concert Orchestra, New York Concerti Sinfonietta, Philadelphia’s Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Delaware, DuPage (IL), Midland (MI), Mississippi and Northwest Arkansas, while abroad she has appeared with the Israel Chamber Orchestra, England’s Maidstone Symphony Orchestra, Portugal’s Orquestra do Algarve, Brazil’s Orquestra Filarmônica do Espírito Santo, Orquestra do Curitiba and Orquestra Experimental de Repertorio, South Africa’s Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, China’s Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra and Taiwan’s Taipei Chinese Orchestra and Evergreen Symphony Orchestra. She has also toured with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.
Recent recitals have included programs at New York City’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Alice Tully Hall, Washington, DC’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Aspen Music Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre, Par-is’ Salle Cortot, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Munich’s Herkulesaal, Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Poland’s Chopin International Festival and Rubinstein Philharmonic Hall (Lodz), Tel Aviv’s Opera House, Taipei’s National Concert Hall and Japan’s Osaka Hall. Ms. Hu is also a frequent guest artist at distinguished music festivals throughout the world.
Ching-Yun Hu’s debut recording, an all-Chopin CD released in 2011 on the Taiwanese label Archi-Music, won Taiwan’s 2012 Golden Melody Award for Best Classical Album of the Year. The fall of 2013 saw the release of her second CD – music of Granados, Mozart and Ravel – on the CAG Records and Sony Music Taiwan labels. The next release from ArchiMusic is planned for 2013, featuring Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Adrian Brendel, Grezgorw Kotwo and the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra..
A native of Taipei, Ching-Yun Hu made her concerto debut at the age of 13 with the Poland Capella Cracoriensis Chamber Orchestra on tour in Asia. One year later, she moved to the United States to continue her musical studies at The Juilliard School in New York City, working principally with Sergei Babayan and Karl-Heinz Kammerling. She also studied chamber music with Joseph Kalichstein and Seymour Lipkin, and received additional guidance from Richard Goode and Murray Perahia.
In 2008, Ching-Yun Hu was awarded an honorary prize from Taiwan’s Minister of Culture, recognizing her artistic achievements to date. In addition to performing, Ms. Hu is a keen advocate for the promotion of classical music. She founded the bi-annual Yun-Hsiang International Music Festival (www.yunhsiang.org) and the Philadelphia Young Pianists Academy at the Curtis Institute of Music, inviting to both some of the most sought-after artists from around the globe to perform at prestigious concert halls in Taipei and Philadelphia and to work with aspiring young musicians on their way to professional careers.
Ching-Yun Hu serves on the faculty at the Esther Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia’s Temple University, where she is also Artist-in-Residence.
