Award-winning Pianist to Perform Sept. 6

Central Illinois residents will be able to say they “saw her back when…” if they attend a piano concert by Chu-Fang Huang, a rising young star in the concert piano world, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 6, in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall at Illinois State University.

Two years ago, the then-23-year-old Huang became the first Chinese pianist to win first prize at the prestigious Cleveland International Piano Competition in August 2005.  Just two months earlier, she was named a finalist in the renowned Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. 

Tickets to her concert, which begins the School of Music Guest Artist Series, are $23 in advance and $25 at the door for the general public, $15 for ISU faculty and staff and $10 for students.  Tickets are available at the Center for the Performing Arts box office from noon to 5 p.m. weekdays or by calling (309) 438-2535.

Huang won the Cleveland competition with a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the renowned Cleveland Orchestra.  Her prize package included the Mixon First Prize, two prizes for best performances of compositions by Chopin and Beethoven, a recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in New York's Lincoln Center and numerous professional concert engagements. She signed with Young Concert Artists after winning their 2006 International Auditions in January.

It was only last December that Huang received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School and also won the Artur Rubinstein Graduate Award.  Her bachelor’s degree is from the Curtis Institute of Music.  Over the past two years, she has made more than 100 concert performances in the United States and abroad, including a Zankel Hall recital at Carnegie Hall and performances at the Kennedy Center, New York’s Merkin Hall, Boston’s Gardner Museum, a solo appearance with the Fort Worth Symphony and a guest appearance at the Chopin Festival in Poland.

Huang, who began piano lessons at age 7, has a long list of first prize awards at piano competitions in China, Australia and the U.S. and has performed in prestigious concert halls in all three countries. 

The next offering in the Guest Artist Series is the Lincolnland Brass Quintet, part of the United States Air Force band of Mid-America, who will perform in a free concert at 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 10, in Kemp Recital Hall.