Ya-Fei Chuang

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Ya-Fei Chuang is University Professor at Mozarteum University in Salzburg, and was visiting professor at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University (2022~2023). She was associate professor of the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and has taught a piano performance seminar for nearly two decades at the New England Conservatory. She is a sought-after teacher of master classes worldwide, including at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau (France), Lievenpiano in Vienna, and since 2008 she has given an annual two-week master class at the International Summer Academy at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She has served on the juries of international piano competitions, most recently at the Grieg Competition in Norway, the Beethoven Competition in Vienna and Telekom Beethoven Competition in Bonn.

Ya-Fei Chuang’s performances have been hailed by the BBC Magazine, Berlin Tagesspiegel, Fanfare Magazine,
Gramophone and the New York Times. Her mentor, Alfred Brendel, has praised her as “a pianist of extraordinary ability, intelligence, sensitivity and command…” Commenting on her newly released Chopin/Liszt recording, he stated, "If you want to listen to Chopin and Liszt with different ears, Ya-Fei Chuang's ecstatic performances cannot leave you cold, and her pianism is staggering;" and Remy Franck called it "...masterful...thrilling...phenomenal" (Classical Music Journal). Reviewing her live recording of the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No.1, Fanfare Magazine hailed her "delicacy and fluidity of touch ... this version now sits at the top of the pile of Mendelssohn Firsts, alongside Perahia, [Rudolf] Serkin, and John Ogdon."

Ya-Fei Chuang’s international appearances as a soloist include the orchestras of Berlin, Boston, Brazil, City of Birmingham, Israel, London, Malaysia, San Francisco and Tokyo. Having performed in over 20 countries, more recently she has appeared in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Norway, Poland, Taiwan, Tokyo, Boston, Florida, New York, Rhode Island, San Francisco. She has performed at the festivals of Verbier, Ruhr, Schleswig-Holstein, the European Music Festival (Germany), Bach Festival (Leipzig), the Mozartwoche (Salzburg), the Mozart Festival (Romania), Beethoven Festival (Warsaw and Krakow), Shannon (Ireland), Oulu (Finland), and in the US at Gilmore, Grand Piano Series, Nevada, Newport, Oregon Bach Festival, Ravinia, Sarasota, Tanglewood, and at the Taipei International Music Festival, Taiwan Connection, Taiwan International Music Festival, and Taiwan Maestro Piano Festival.

She has performed in the Celebrity Series in Boston, at the Fromm Foundation concerts at Harvard, the Harvard Musical Association, the International Music Sessions in Prussia Cove, England, and with the New York Philomusica. She performs frequently with the Spectrum Ensemble Berlin, and has appeared in duo performances with Pierre Amoyal, James Buswell, Alban Gerhardt, Clive Greensmith, Kim Kashkashian, Boris Pergamenschikow, and is a frequent partner of Steven Isserlis and Robert Levin. She has collaborated in duo and chamber music performances with concertmasters and principal players of the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra.

She is equally adept at playing the fortepiano and has performed with leading ensembles on period instruments, including Boston Baroque, Concerto Köln, Handel & Haydn Society, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Baroque. She recently gave a concert at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, on a newly restored 1820s Fritz fortepiano; and she has performed and recorded as soloist the three Mozart double and triple concertos with Robert Levin, Laurence Cummings, and the Academy of Ancient Music in London to great critical acclaim.

Chuang's mastery of the most challenging solo and chamber music repertoire is complemented by her passionate commitment to contemporary music. She has premiered numerous works by international prize winners Thomas Oboe Lee, Alexander Müllenbach, Stanley Walden, MacArthur and Pulitzer Prize winner John Harbison and Pulitzer Prize winner Yehudi Wyner. She has presented contemporary music at many important venues, including in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, at the Ruhr Piano Festival, in New York, Boston, Salzburg, at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau (France), at Yale University and as a soloist with orchestra for the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University.

Ya-Fei Chuang has recorded for AAM Records, ECM, Harmonia Mundi, Le Palais des Dégustateurs, Naxos, and New York Philomusica Records. The Klavierfestival-Ruhr has released a number of her live recordings, including a solo recital distributed as a premium by Fono Forum Magazine in Germany. Her recording of Hindemith chamber works was awarded a special prize by the International Record Review.

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 solo recital at age nine. She won first prize at the nationally televised ‘Genius vs. Genius’ Competition at age ten, and as a student of Prof. Rolf-Peter Wille she won 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 numerous prizes, including the Basel-Colmar-Freiburg Arts Prize, the Mendelssohn Prize (Freiburg) and Parke-Davis Prize (Germany). She subsequently concluded her German studies with Pavel Gililov, receiving a concert diploma (final degree) at the Cologne Conservatory, and earned a graduate diploma at the New England Conservatory in Boston with Russell Sherman. Her master class teachers included Leon Fleischer, Gil Kalish, Elisabeth Leonskaja, John O'Conor, John Perry, Menahem Pressler, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel, and György Sebök.

Ya-Fei Chuang is a Steinway artist.