Hsing-ay Hsu

Since making her stage debut at age 4, Chinese pianist Hsing-ay Hsu (“Sing-I Shoo”) has performed at such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and abroad in Asia and Europe. Her first major win against seasoned stars was a coveted William Kapell International Piano Competition silver medal. Ms. Hsu went on to win the Ima Hogg National Competition First Prize, the prestigious Juilliard William Petschek Recital Award, a McCrane Foundation Artist Grant, a Paul & Daisy Soros Graduate Fellowship Award, and a Gilmore Young Artist Award. She was also named a US Presidential Scholar of the Arts by President Clinton at the White House. A versatile concerto soloist performing Bach to Barber, she is described by the Washington Post as full of “power, authority, and self-assurance.” Concerto collaborations include the Houston Symphony Orchestra as first-prize winner of the 2003 Ima Hogg National Competition, the Baltimore Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, Pacific Symphony(CA), Colorado Springs, Florida West Coast, Fort Collins, New Jersey, Waterbury(CT), China National, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Xiamen orchestras. Television and radio feature broadcasts include Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion Live from Tanglewood (for a 10,000+ live audience members and 3.9 million broadcast audience), NPR’s Performance Today with Martin Goldsmith, TCI cablevision’s Grand Piano Recital (CA), CPR’s Colorado Spotlight, China Central National TV, Hong Kong Phoenix TV, and Danish National Radio. She has recorded CD/DVD’s for Pacific Records, Albany Records, and Nutmeg Press labels. An advocate of new music, she has given numerous world premieres including Ezra Laderman’s Piano Sonata No. and Beshert; Ned Rorem’s Aftermath (2002) for baritone and piano trio; Daniel Kellogg’s scarlet thread at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and his Momentum, which she commissioned for the 1998 Gilmore International Keyboard Festival; as well as Du MingXin’s Piano Concerto No.3 at the Gulangyu International Piano Festival and National Tour.

Chamber music appearances include Carnegie Weill Hall, Bargemusic in New York, the Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Detroit Art Museum, Denmark’s Viborg Hall, Taiwan’s Novel Hall, and a 2007 all-stars gala in Hong Kong for the 10th anniversary of the reunification. For her cultural projects, such as the multi-media recital China through the Lens of Piano Music, co-directing/performing in the George Crumb at 80 Music Festival, and producing/performing the Olivier Messiaen Centennial series. Inspired by interdisciplinary arts, she has collaborated on several projects as a piano soloist with the Colorado Ballet and dance projects at CU, multimedia works, a flamenco composer/guitarist, a jazz pianist, and even a local theater improv group. Ms. Hsu has become a prominent cultural figure in the Denver-Boulder corridor, where she was named a “Denver Pathmaker”, and where she has solo-ed with the Colorado Symphony and created events for the Denver Art Museum. She feels privileged to mentor young/young-at-heart musicians and teachers, and to serve as a creative consultant for local organizations. As Artistic Director for Pendulum New Music at CU-Boulder until recently, she brought in international artists to the region from Finland, Mexico, the U.K., hosted celebrity masterclasses including Kronos Quartet and Béla Fleck, and oversaw the premiere of almost five hundred premieres. Her Conscious ListeningTM seminars bring dynamic teaching to festivals, private homes, music societies, and pre-concert talks for the CU Presents Artist Series. She also adjudicates regularly for national and international competitions. Besides chairing the CSMTA College Forum, she served on the national editorial board of American Music Teacher magazine. Her recordings are frequently broadcast on CPR. Ms. Hsu has been visiting piano faculty at Ohio University, the University of Colorado in Boulder, Metro State University, and University of Northern Colorado, and has given masterclasses and seminars at institutions including the International Keyboard Odyssiad Festival, Music Teachers National Association national conference, University of Denver, Conservatoire Maurice Ravel in Paris, Chautauqua New York, and Central Conservatory Pre-College in China . A beloved teacher, her students have won numerous solo and concerto prizes. She is on the Rocky Ridge Adult Seminar faculty in Estes Park, Colorado.

Born in Beijing, Hsu studied piano with her parents and her uncle Fei-Ping Hsu, and later with Herbert Stessin at Juilliard and Claude Frank at Yale. She also trained in the fellowship programs at the Tanglewood Music Center, Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, the Aldeburgh Britten-Pears Programme (UK), the Aspen Music Festival, and abroad. Ms. Hsu is a Steinway Artist and resides in New York City and Boulder, Colorado, with her husband, composer and YCA president Daniel Kellogg, and one daughter. Her concert schedule and recordings are available at www.hsingayhsu.com.