Hao Huang (pianist)

Hao Huang (born February 12, 1957) is a concert pianist, recording artist and professor of music at Scripps College as well as a distinguished scholar in general music, popular music, ethnomusicology, anthropology, American Studies and Humanities. He frequently performs and lectures in the U.S.A., China, Italy, Hungary, Austria and other countries.

Education

Hao Huang was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.A.. In 1967, he began piano studies with distinguished concert pianist, pedagogue and composer Seymour Bernstein in New York City, until acceptance to Harvard College, Harvard University at age 17. Huang was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Scholarship at Harvard College during which time he studied with Leon Fleisher. Upon graduation with an AB in music, Huang won by audition the Frank Huntington Beebe grant for European Study. Upon his return to the States, he studied with Beveridge Webster at the Juilliard School, graduating with an M.M. in piano. Huang finished his academic studies as a Graduate Council Fellow at the Stony Brook University, earning a Doctor of Musical Arts in piano under the guidance of Charles Rosen and Gilbert Kalish.

Professional Career

Professor of Music and artist-in-residence at Scripps College and four-time United States Information Agency Artistic Ambassador, Hao Huang has performed in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. He was a featured soloist at the George Enescu Festival and the Barcelona Cultural Olympiad, and was concerto soloist with the Timisoara "Banatul" Philharmonic, Sinfonietta Hungarica, Brevard Music Center Orchestra, Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and others. Founder and first artistic director of the Animas Music Festival, Durango, Colorado, Huang also performs chamber music with the Mei Duo and the Gold Coast Trio. Prior to joining the music faculty at Scripps College, Huang taught on the faculties of the Petrie School of Music at Converse College and the Hochschule für Musik "Franz Liszt", Weimar, Germany. He was guest artist faculty at University of California, Davis, San Francisco State University, the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, the Regional Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences at Veszprém Castle, Hungary and Xiamen University, People's Republic of China, and others. Huang has appeared in broadcasts on television and radio in concert and lecture format in the USA and abroad. He was featured in an Artist/Educator interview on The Piano Education Page.

Huang's article, "The Parable of the Grasshoppers...", was honored as American Music Teacher's 1995 Article of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association. Additional articles have been published in the College Music Symposium, Clavier Magazine, Music Educators' Journal (MENC), Music Teacher (London), American Indian Culture and Research Journal (UCLA), Chinese Music (North American Society for Chinese Music), Popular Music (Cambridge University), Popular Music and Society (NIU, Routledge Press), Art and Academe (School of the Visual Arts, NYC), National Federation of Music Clubs Magazine, Humanities International (Xiamen University, PRC) and Asian Folklore Studies (Nanzan University, Nagoya). His work on Billie Holiday was reviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education and appeared in the 1994 Annual Review of Jazz Studies of Rutgers University. Huang authored ten entries as a member of the international editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Music in the Twentieth Century, published by M.E. Sharpe (London) and has written a book chapter, "The Oekku-Shadeh of Ohkay Owingeh" in Voices from Four Directions (University of Nebraska Press). In recognition of his interdisciplinary scholarly work in jazz and literature, he was interviewed on NPR Morning Edition about "The 'Lost' Opera of James P. Johnson and Langston Hughes".

Awards and Honors

Winner of the USIA David Bruce Smith National Competition, the Overman Foundation Competition first prize, the Van Cliburn Piano Award at Interlochen Center for the Arts and other awards, Huang also performed as the China Institute in America's New York Solo Debut Artist at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. He received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York and Colorado Councils of the Arts and the California Meet the Composer Series. Founder and original executive director of the Animas Music Festival in Durango, Colorado, Huang is also active as a chamber musician with the Mei Duo and the Gold Coast Trio. In 2008, Huang was honored to be a Fulbright Scholar in Music and American Studies at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary. Over the summers of 2007, 2008 and 2010, he led Scripps College music faculty delegations by invitation to the Arts College at Xiamen University, PRC. Huang has received multiple Mary W. Johnson Faculty Achievement Awards for Outstanding Research, Creative Work and Performance and also several M.W. Johnson Faculty Awards for Outstanding Teaching at Scripps College. He has been awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Local Initiatives Grant for the Claremont Colleges Faculty College of Music, a Mellon Foundation Inter-Institutional Travel Grant to Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, a Mellon Foundation Odyssey Grant, a James Irvine Foundation Diversity in the Curriculum Development Grant and a Irvine Foundation Faculty Research Grant for ethnomusicological fieldwork on Hmong traditional music in northern Thailand.

Selected Works and Publications

Recordings

• THE GOLD COAST TRIO "live at Mondavi Center" (Agnelli CD-2) 2006
• THE MEI DUO "live", American Romantics (VSA CD-2000-1) 2001

Piano Pedagogy

• "Technical Exercises for Pianists", (co-author Shang Yiing Tsai, CGU DMA student), Piano Journal, London, European Piano Teachers Association, 2010
• "Posture at the Piano: Body Awareness for Pianists", (co-author I-Ching Tsai, Huang CGU DMA student), Clavier, 2010
• Featured in article, "On Practicing", The Washington Post, March 19, 1996
• "How Piano Technique Changed", co-author Harold Lee (Huang CGU DMA student), Clavier, Vol. 36, No. 2, 1996
• "Different Types: Four Main Learning Styles Among Students", Music Teacher (London), January Vol. 75, 1996
• WWW Page feature, "Distinguished Artist/Educator Interview, October 1995", in The Piano Education Page
• Internet Web Articles, PEP --
  • THE TEACHING STUDIO: On Teaching Piano Technique, 1999
  • TECHNIQUE MATTERS: Problems with Posture, 1999 '

Ethnomusicology

• Book chapter, "The Oekuu Shadeh of Ohkay Owingeh" in Voices from Four Directions, Brian Swann, ed. (University of Nebraska Press), 2004
• "The 1992 Turtle Dance (Oekuu Shadeh) of San Juan Pueblo: Lessons with the Composer, Peter Garcia", American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Vol. 21, No. 4 (UCLA American Indian Studies Center), 1998

Popular Music

• "Voices from Chinese Rock, Past and Present Tense: Social Commentary and Construction of Identity in Yaogun Yinyue from Tiananmen to the Present," Popular Music and Society, vol. 26, nr. 2 (Routledge Press), 2003
• "Yaogun Yinyue: rethinking mainland Chinese rock 'n' roll", Popular Music, Vol. 20, Nr. 1 (Cambridge University Press), 2001
• "Towards an Understanding of Rhythmic Expressivity: Billie Holiday's Rubato", co-author Dr. Rachel Vetter Huang, Annual Review of Jazz Studies, Vol. 7, 1994-95 (Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University)

General Music Studies

• "Transcultural Aspects of Music: What Did Confucius Say?" (co-author Ramona Sohn Allen, Huang CGU DMA student) American Music Teacher, Vol. 49, No. 5 (MTNA), 2000
• MEJ article in translation, "Music Appreciation Courses: Broadening Perspectives", Greek Society for Music Education Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1998
• Entries (C. Arrau, V. Ashkenazy, S. Barber, E. Carter, Billie Holiday, V. Horowitz, "Bud" Powell, Arthur Rubinstein, Artur Schnabel), in Encyclopedia of Music in the Twentieth Century, M.E. Sharpe, London, 1998

Anthropology

• "Speaking with Spirits: The 'Ntoo Xeeb' Hmong New Year Ceremony", Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 63, nr. 1 (Nanzan University Press, Japan), 2004

American Studies

• "Enter the Blues: Jazz Poems by Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown", Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (University of Pannonia, Veszprém), 2010

Humanities

• "American Jazz Poetry and Music: From Langston Hughes' Urban Blues to Michael S. Harper's Praise Songs", Inaugural Spring issue of Humanities International, vol. 1 (Xiamen University Press), 2010

Composition

• Song cycle for countertenor and piano, Change of State, based on poems by David Lloyd, as culminating program of Songlines, A Wednesday Evening Series of Poetry and Music, part of the Alexa Fullerton Hampton Speaker Series at Scripps College., 2003

External Links

• Personal webpage [1]
• Dr. Hao Huang, Professor of Music [2]
• Seymour Bernstein [3]
• Frank Huntington Beebe Grant for European Study [4]
• Scripps College Music Department webpage [5]
• Classical Music Festival, Eisenstadt, Austria [6]
• China Institute in America [7]
• Eötvös Lorand University [8] |