Monday, July 20, 2015

Heather Hsun Chang: 2nd Prize, Piano, Cat.C | 2015


16 year old 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.

Heather attends the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Division where she is a Hurlbut-Johnson Preparatory scholarship student and studies piano with Corey McVicar. Heather participates in the Chamber Music program at the Conservatory and coaches with a prestigious faculty including master classes with cellist Bonnie Hampton and the Telegraph String Quartet. Her piano trios perform 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 continues her chamber music collaborations at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California where she is currently a sophomore. She is also the principal of double bass and piano in school orchestra, and enjoyed touring with the orchestra to Chicago for the 2013 Midwest Festival.

Heather has participated in numerous competitions and has had successes in the Pacific Musical Society Competition, the San Francisco Chopin Competition, and the Kawaii Piano Competition in the Taiwan Regional. As a frequent performer, she has also performed at different venues including the Presidio of San Francisco, New World Center in Miami, Steinway Piano Gallery in Taipei, Mount Royal University in Calgary, and the Keiter Center in Natick, Boston.

This past summer, Heather got full scholarship to participate in the 2014 Morningside Music Bridge Music Festival in Calgary, Canada. Besides that, she also attended the Walnut Hill Music Festival in Natick, Boston, in the summer of 2012.

To add on, Heather attended the YoungArts Week 2015 in Miami as one of the 21 classical music finalists for the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and received a Level I Award.

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