Jihye Chang
Programs
Piano Institute
Pianist Jihye Chang enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, collaborator, educator, scholar, and advocate for new music in the United States and abroad. Her performances focus on the creative process of collaborating with living composers, curating programs that connect to various audiences, and giving context to contemporary works.
She is a recipient of the Henry Kohn Award from the Tanglewood Music Center, an Honorary Fellowship from the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, the Aaron Copland Recording Grant, and first prize of the Mikhashoff International Pianist-Composer Competition. She has appeared as a soloist with the Brevard Music Center Sinfonietta, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Fargo Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, Wonjoo Philharmonic Orchestra, Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, and Virtuosi of Festival Internacionale de Musica in Recife (Brazil), among others. In 2024 she premiered a piano concerto written for her by Sungji Hong as part of Hong’s Guggenheim Fellowship, with Intersection Music in Nashville. Since 2016 she has led more than 20 performances of her solo project “Continuum 88” – a solo project in which she programs masterworks of piano literature, focusing on specific genres such as etudes and variations each season, alongside newly commissioned works in the same genres by younger composers – in venues across the United States, South Korea, and Taiwan.
As a chamber musician she has collaborated with musicians from across the States including Cheeyun, Jordan Bak, Frank Cohen, Andrés Diaz, and Richard Young, among others and has appeared at the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, Blue Candlelight Music Series in Dallas, Artist Series of Tallahassee, Broman Series at Mary Baldwin University, and Parker Concert Series in Brevard. She has also appeared at the Nuevo Mundo Festival y Academia in Aruba, Old First Church Concert Series of San Francisco, and the Tuesday Concert Series at Seoul National University. Recently she led residencies both in person and online at Indiana University, UCLA, Tufts University, Rutgers University, University of North Texas, Texas Christian University, and Tulane University, working with young composers and composition faculty members.
Chang’s recordings can be found on Albany, Centaur, Parma, and Sony Korea. She recently recorded 8 “Boston Etudes” written for her by 8 Boston-based composers during the COVID-19 lockdown, and they will be released on New Focus in September 2024. Her research interests are piano etudes, music by women composers, interdisciplinary outreach programs, and music by Korean composers.
Chang graduated from Seoul National University (summa cum laude) and earned her Master’s and Doctorate degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. She is on the faculty at Florida State University and the Brevard Music Center. She also directs the piano area of the Quartet Intensive Bulgaria and is a core member of the Intersection Music. You can visit https://instagram.com/jihyechangpiano to see her passion for espresso and listen to her online premieres and other performances on https://www.youtube.com/jihyechangpiano.