UGA Piano Symposium


2024 Headlining Guest Artist: YONG-HI MOON
Symposium Director: Grace Huang

This event is free and open to the public.

The 2024 Piano Symposium will take place in Edge Recital Hall at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music. Pre-registration is requested. Please email Dr. Grace Huang (grace.huang@uga.edu) to pre-register.

Symposium Schedule (subject to change):

  • TBA
Pianist, YONG-HI MOON Accomplished pianist and teacher Yong Hi Moon made her solo debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at age 10 as winner of the National Korean Broadcasting Competition. Ms. Moon has won top prizes in the Elena-Rombro Stepanow Competition in Vienna, the Viotti International Competition in Vercelli, Italy, the Vienna da Motta Competition in Lisbon, Portugal, and also received the Chopin Prize from the Geneva International Competition in Switzerland.

Ms. Moon performs extensively throughout Asia, Europe and the US as recitalist and soloist, having appeared with the Korean National Symphony and the Osaka, Seoul, and Tokyo Philharmonics. 

To celebrate Mozart’s bicentennial year in 1991, she participated in a cycle of the composer’s complete piano concerti with the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1997, Ms. Moon undertook the complete solo piano works of Schubert, performing them in six recitals in both Korea and the US. The summer of 2000 marked her first extensive concert tour of Korea, which included solo recitals in five cities. In addition, she performed with all the major orchestras in Korea and participates regularly in such summer festivals as Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Art of piano in Cincinnati among others.

Ms. Moon is in high demand as a guest master class teacher and adjudicator. In 1993, she released a popular teaching video in Korea entitled Artistic Piano Playing. In addition, she is a frequent visitor to Beijing where she regularly gives master classes at the China Conservatory as well as the Middle School of the Central Conservatory.

She has served on the juries of the CCC Toronto International Piano Competition, Senigallia International Piano Competition in Italy, Gilmore International Piano Competition, Gina Bachauer International Competition, the Virginia Waring International as well as numerous MTNA competitions throughout the US. She has also served as a screening judge in the William Kapell and the Hilton Head International Competition. In March of 2014, she chaired the jury at Seoul International Piano Competition.

Ms. Moon was a professor of piano at Michigan State University School of Music for fifteen years, and since 2002 she has been a professor of piano at Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and from 2017 to 2020, she served as the chair of the piano department. 

Ms. Moon studied at the Vienna Academy, graduating with the highest honors. She continued her studies in London before pursuing an Artist Diploma at Indiana University in Bloomington. Her major teachers include Dieter Weber, Maria Curcio, György Sebok, Leon Fleisher, Wilhelm Kempff and Fou T’song, who have always been inspirations in her work.

Most recently, she was invited to judge 2023 Cleveland International Piano Competition and also to teach at Tianjin-Juilliard Piano Festival this past summer.

 
Symposium Faculty Bios

 

Grace Huang is Lecturer of Piano Pedagogy and Class Piano Coordinator at the University of Georgia where she teaches undergraduate and graduate pedagogy courses, class piano, and oversees all aspects of the class piano program. Additionally, she owns and operates an independent piano studio in Athens.

Prior to her UGA appointment, Dr. Huang was on the piano faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she maintained a studio in the CIM Preparatory division and served as Head of Secondary Piano in the Conservatory division, overseeing the class piano program. She was also on the piano faculties of Millikin University (IL) and St. Cloud State University (MN), as well as summer music programs such as UGA Summer Music Camp and Institute, Summer Sonata (CIM), Illinois Summer Youth Music (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.

Praised for her “lovely and vivacious” playing (Fort Worth Star-Telegram), she has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad as soloist, chamber musician, and collaborative pianist. Recent performances were in Tampa, Cleveland, Charleston, Taiwan, and Austria. 

In demand as a teacher, her students have received local, state, and regional honors. She is an active member of MTNA, having held multiple leadership roles and regularly serving as adjudicator and clinician. She has presented and performed at the National Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum and state conferences for Texas, Illinois, and Georgia Music Teachers Associations, among others.

Dr. Huang holds degrees in piano performance from the University of Minnesota (MM and DMA) and Vanderbilt University (BM). Former teachers include Lydia Artymiw, Craig Nies, Roland Schneller, and Sue Hudson; pedagogy studies were with Rebecca Shockley, Karen Ann Krieger, and Elizabeth Cormier. She is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music.

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