A recent graduate from Columbia University, pianist Heather Hsun Chang has already performed quite extensively, both as a very young pianist in her native country, Taiwan, and in more recent years, in various cities on both coasts of the United States. At Columbia, she majors in Neuroscience and Behavior, and studies piano with Reiko Uchida and Magdalena Baczewska in the Music Performance Program. Besides music, she is deeply involved in neuroscience and genetics research in the Gladstone Institutes for Neurological Disease (Corces Lab) and the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute (Axel Lab). She attended Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Division. She was a Hurlbut-Johnson scholarship student at the conservatory and the sole recipient of the 2014 Young Artist Certificate, the highest level recognition in the Pre-College division.

 

Heather has had successes in various piano competitions, including winnings in the 2018 New York Piano Competition, 2017 Pacific Musical Society Competition, 2016 Young Pianists’ Beethoven Competition, 2015 American Prize, ENKOR International piano competition, Ross Mckee piano competition, San Francisco Chopin Competition, and the Kawaii Piano Competition, Taiwan Regional. Besides competition, Heather is also invited to perform at different venues such as the American Beethoven Society, the New World Center in Miami, and Concerts at the Presidio- Allegro, Inferno. Furthermore, Heather was selected as one of the 21 classical music finalists for the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and attended the 2015 YoungArts Week in Miami. In November of 2015, Palo Alto Weekly interviewed her in the article “A Passion for Piano” (http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/11/13/a-passion-for-piano).

 

Her musical studies continue in the summer when she participated in the Bowdoin International Music Festival studying under Douglas Humpherys (2016); the Southeastern Piano Festival (2016); the Dominican University Chamber Camp (2015), the Morningside Music Bridge Music Festival in Calgary, Canada (2014); and the Walnut Hill Music Festival in Natick, Boston (2012), all with scholarships. Besides solo piano, Heather also enjoys playing chamber music. She participated in the SFCM chamber music program and has been coached by prestigious faculty including Bettina Mussumeli, Rosemary Elliott, Bonnie Hampton, the Telegraph String Quartet, and the Fidelio Trio from London. Her piano trios performed regularly at the Conservatory and they have participated in both the San Francisco Chamber Music Day and in a collaborative event for the Klein Competition. Heather also plays in a piano trio at Columbia University, coached by Muneko Otani.

 

Her previous piano teachers include Mack McCray, Corey McVicar, and Chiao-Han Liao, and she has participated in master classes of Matti Raekallio, Anton Nel, Marc Durand, Jonathan Biss, and John Perry.