*NOTE: All tickets are subjet to an additional $4 per ticket facility fee. 

Night Music

Join us for a magical evening of piano music featuring artists from the San Francisco International Piano Festival. Eunmi Ko performs night music by Bela Bartok, David Liptak, and Robert Schumann, followed by Liszt's epic Sonata in b minor performed by Jiyang Chen.

BIOS

Praised by critics for his poetic and lyrical style, Jiyang Chen made his concerto debut at the age of seventeen with the Ruby Mountain Symphony Orchestra and performed the Gershwin Piano Concerto with the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra as well as the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Reno Chamber Orchestra. He received his Master’s in Piano Performance from New York University, studying under the tutelage of Seymour Bernstein, and his Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Barry Snyder as a recipient of the Howard Hanson Scholarship and the George Eastman Grant. Prior to that, he studied privately with James Winn at the University of Nevada, Reno.

He is also a portrait photographer based in NYC. Chen is drawn to photography through its powerful storytelling capacity, and just as music is a way of painting with sound on the blank canvas of silence, he sees a photograph as that canvas for capturing the broad palette and nuanced brush strokes of his subject's story and emotions. It is an opportunity to capture moments that signify human experiences much larger than the moment itself.

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Praised for “beautiful array of pianistic colors”, “abundance of technique”, “original interpretation”, and “undeniably impressive prestidigitation”, pianist Eunmi Ko appeared in the Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Festival de Musica Contemporanea, Festival Cervantino Internacional in Mexico, Chautauqua Music Festival, Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival, Women in Music Festival (Rochester, NY), Music Center of Christchurch, Real Conservatorio Superior de Musica de Madrid, Siam Ratchada Auditorium, Seoul Arts Center, Eastman School of Music, World Piano Conference, Music Since 1900 Conference, among others. Ko performs a wide range of piano repertoire from premieres of new works by living composers to the traditional and rarely played piano works. Ko frequently communicates with young pianists through recitals and master classes at conservatories and universities. Recently, she was guest artist/teacher at Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio, Ohio University, Eastern Michigan University, Lynn University, University of Florida, University of Tampa, University of Tennessee, Ying Wa College, among others. Ko is co-founder and co-director of the unique piano trio Strings & Hammers, which has the unusual instrumentation of violin, piano, and double bass and music director of new opera company Sunshine City Opera. This spring, she launched the piano- voice duo Songeaters with Grammy nominated mezzo soprano Thea Lobo.

Ko holds a BM degree from Seoul National University and graduate degrees (MM and DMA) from the Eastman School of Music where she studied with Rebecca Penneys. Ko teaches at USF as Assistant Professor of Piano and Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival. She is also co-advisor of the New-Music Consortium at the University of South Florida. Ko may also be heard on the recently published CD release of She Rose, and Let Me In (“This is an unusual but beautifully assembled program…”) and Musical Landscapes of Hilary Tann (“excellent introduction to Tann’s music world”). 

visit the Jiyang Chen website

visit the Eunmi Ko website