Education

The Juilliard School, D.M.A.

September 2017 - May 2022, New York, NY

• Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) in Piano Performance

• Studied piano performance with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Matti Raekallio

• Recipient of the C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellowship

The Juilliard School, M.M.

September 2015 - May 2017, New York, NY

• Master of Music (M.M.) in Piano Performance

• Recipient of the Artzt Scholarship

University of Cambridge, Robinson College, Visiting Scholar

October 2014 - June 2015, Cambridge, United Kingdom

• Columbia University’s Oxbridge Scholars Program in Mathematics, Mathematical Tripos Part IB

• Studied piano performance with Christopher Elton at Royal Academy of Music in London

Columbia University, Columbia College, B.A.

September 2012 - May 2016, New York, NY

• Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Mathematics

• Recipient of the Sou Chan Scholarship

• John Jay Scholar

• Dean’s List (2012 - 2013)

The Juilliard School, Joint Program

September 2012 - May 2017, New York, NY

• Columbia-Juilliard Joint Program

• Studied piano performance with Yoheved Kaplinsky

The Juilliard School, Pre-College

September 2009 - May 2012, New York, NY

• Studied piano performance with Yoheved Kaplinsky

• Attended Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS), the partner high school of the Juilliard Pre-College

Solo Music Experience

Pearl River-Kayserburg Artist

November 2022 - Present

International Telekom Beethoven Competition

December 2017, Bonn, Germany

PianoTexas International Academy

May 2017, Fort Worth, TX

Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition

April 2017, Tel Aviv, Israel

Music Academy of the West

2016, Santa Barbara, CA

• Recipient of full scholarship

International Musical Artistry Goslar

2015, Goslar, Germany

International Chopin Piano Competition

2015, Warsaw, Poland

Pianofest in the Hamptons

2014, East Hampton, NY

• Recipient of full scholarship

Solo Album Recording

November 2013, Warsaw, Poland

• Recorded the first solo album under the sponsorship of Arte90

• Program included:

  • Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109

  • Chopin - Andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante in E-flat major, Op. 22

  • Stravinsky - Three Movements from Petrushka

  • Liszt - Réminiscences de Don Juan, S. 418

Cleveland International Piano Competition

2013, Cleveland, OH

Aspen Music Festival

2011, Aspen, CO

• Recipient of full scholarship

Morocco International Piano Competition

March 2011, Casablanca/Rabat, Morocco

• Recipient of the first prize and the orchestra prize

• Was the youngest winner in the history of the competition

Leeds International Piano Competition

August 2009, Leeds, United Kingdom

• Was the youngest contestant in the competition who advanced into the quarterfinal

Ettlingen International Piano Competition

August 2008, Ettlingen, Germany

• Recipient of the second prize

• Was the youngest contestant in the history of the competition, category B (age up to 20)

Krainev Piano Competition

March 2008, Kharkiv/Kyiv, Ukraine

• Recipient of the first prize in the junior category

Collaborative Music Experience

The KU Asian Classical Music Initiative (ACMI) International Conferenc

April 8 - 9, 2022, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

• Participated in the ACMI conference, an acronym celebrating the contribution and awareness of Asian musicians in the field of classical music, featuring a keynote address given by Dr. Chen Yi

• Collaborated with performers from the university of Kansas, performing commissioned chamber works

• Worked with composers, performing experimental works featuring non-conventional piano techniques and real-time audio generation using Max patches

Zhaoyin Academy

2020 - 2021, China

• Co-founder of Zhaoyin Academy, a non-profit student-run organization aiming to introduce classical music, as a medium for community service, to the general public

• Organized and performed multiple non-profit chamber music concerts as part of the pandemic stress buster effort

Accompanist

2019 - 2021, The Juilliard School

• Served as Juilliard’s school accompanist, accompanying student lessons, performances, competitions, auditions, and recording sessions

FOCUS Festival

January 2020, The Juilliard School

• Performed as a member of the New Juilliard Ensemble in the FOCUS festival concert series, featuring contemporary works utilizing non-conventional techniques and prepared piano

Transatlantic Music Project

May 2018, Italy/Germany

• Participated in a one-week chamber music intensive with performances in Montepulciano (Italy), Bonn (Germany), and Köln (Germany)

• A chamber music project promoting cultural and musical exchange, forming chamber music groups consisting of musicians from the Juilliard school and the Köln Hochschule für Musik und Tanz

Teaching Experience

Lecturer, Piano Department

November 2022 - Present, Harbin Conservatory of Music, China

• Serving as full-time faculty member (rank: lecturer) in the piano department

• Overseeing the undergraduate piano major curriculum, including private lessons, studio classes, and elective courses (e.g. piano duo). Experience with teaching in lesson/tutoring (one-on-one) settings as well as classroom/lecture (group) settings

• As an active artist-scholar, performing concerts as well as attending academic events on behalf of the conservatory

• Participating in administrative routines and other duties (e.g. auditions, exams, and juries)

HDG Ambassador

2021, China

• Served as ambassador of the HDG teaching series developed by Prof. Zhaoyi Dan, focusing on a new approach to pedagogy of beginner-level piano playing

• Gave multiple 12-hour teacher training intensives (in Chengdu, Hefei, and Guangzhou) by presenting detailed interpretation and usage of the teaching materials

• Gave non-profit presentations and masterclasses on music appreciation to high school students

Morse Teaching Fellow, Music Aesthetics

September 2020 - May 2021, The Juilliard School

• Served as teaching fellow in a music aesthetics course at George Jackson Academy, a middle school serving underserved communities

• Introduced topics and repertoire in music history ranging from the Baroque to the Romantic era

• Focused on introducing technical ideas to non-musician teenagers in an approachable manner, often involving the extensive use of metaphors, stories, visual aids to help students with understanding and maintaining interest

• Adapted to a fully online teaching environment using Zoom

Teaching Fellow, Graduate Music Theory Review

September 2020 - May 2021, The Juilliard School

• Served a section of 17 students as teaching fellow in an graduate review course in music theory

• Assessed and graded attendance, assignments, and exams using Canvas LMS

• Adapted to a fully online teaching environment using Zoom

Teaching Fellow, Music Theory III/IV

September 2019 - May 2020, The Juilliard School

• Served a section of 14 students as teaching fellow in an undergraduate sophomore course in music theory (level III/IV)

• Covered topics: augmented sixth chords, Neapolitan chords, modal mixture, tonicization, modulation, sequence, and forms

• Assessed and graded attendance, assignments, and exams using Canvas LMS

• Lectured when the course instructor was absent

• Led weekly class keyboard workshops, focusing on harmonization exercises with an emphasis on keyboard realization

• Gave lectures and held Q&A sessions during the weekly keyboard workshops in review and preview of the lecture portion

• Designed and conducted in-class keyboard exams and group activities for the weekly keyboard workshops, reinforcing students’ understanding from the lecture portion

Writing Tutor, English and Liberal Arts

September 2015 - May 2020, The Juilliard School

• Served as writing tutor in Juilliard’s writing and communication center, conducting one-on-one tutoring appointments

• Specialized in brainstorming strategies for essays and presentations, topics in music and liberal arts, and strategies for outline design and argumentation

• As a result of understanding and advocating cultural contextualism and perspective-taking, demonstrated strength in communicating with international students to whom English and American academic writing styles were unfamiliar

Writings

The Musical Arrow of Time - The Role of Temporal Asymmetry in Music and Its Organicist Implications

2022, The Juilliard School

• D.M.A. Dissertation

• Advisor: Philip Lasser

• Reviewers: Jonathan Dawe, Anne-Marie Reynolds

• A 285-page monograph addressing the role of temporal asymmetry (i.e. the arrow of time) in music and its effects on: music perception, formal structure, and music aesthetics

• A discursive project adopting an interdisciplinary approach, synthesizing fields such as philosophy (e.g. epistemology), physics (e.g. thermodynamics), theology, narratology, dramaturgy, and acting techniques

Why 12? An Exploration of the 12-Tone Equal Temperament Using Python

September 10, 2019

• An expository paper aiming to offer a mathematical perspective on the choice of 12 in the 12-tone equal temperament system

• Incorporated Python’s interactive notebook environment (commonly known as JupyterLab) for data visualization, making the paper appealing to a wider audience

When Notation Becomes the Boundary of Musical Expression

May 15, 2019, The Juilliard School

• With Bartok’s Violin Sonata No. 2 (Sz. 76) as a case study, the paper investigated the limitation of the written tradition of music (i.e. musical notation) and its adversary effects on music performance

Struggle with the Daemon - Schumann and His Ghost Variation

December 19, 2018, The Juilliard School

• An analysis of Schumann’s Ghost Variation (WoO 24)

• Inspired by Stefan Zweig’s book bearing the same title, the paper surveyed various topics in relation to the work: obsessiveness, redemption, and spirituality

Fantasy as the Carrier of Schubert’s Spiritual Journey

December 17, 2018, The Juilliard School

• An analysis of Schubert’s Fantasy for Violin and Piano (D.934), and Fantasy in F Minor (D.940), focusing on the idea of the Romantic wanderer

Fatal Encounters in Tristan and Isolde as Reconciliation

December 13, 2018, The Juilliard School

• An analysis of three instances of fatal encounters in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, as they served the theme of love-death dichotomy in musical and dramatic terms

Leap of Faith - The Role of Mathematics and Myth in the Development of Music Theory

December 20, 2017, The Juilliard School

• A survey of the development of music theory during the pre-tonal era, discussing treatises by Boethius, Guido, and Zarlino

• Focused on the evolution of music theory in relation to mathematics and myth, proposing the thesis that music theory emancipated itself from mathematics and myth during the course of its development, thus evolving into a subject on its own

Invertible Counterpoint - A Computational Approach

January 2017, The Juilliard School

• A paper written in response to a graduate course in counterpoint, aiming to mathematically capture rules for solving invertible counterpoint exercises

• Reformulated music-theoretic rules using mathematical terms, enabling an algorithmic implementation of computer-aided solution process

Presentations & Talks

Reconciling Unity and Variety - Revisiting “Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24" by Brahms

December 10, 2021, The Juilliard School

• D.M.A. lecture-performance, a 60-minute presentation consisting of a 30-minute lecture portion and a 30-minute performance portion

• Discussed and analyzed, from the perspective of a concert pianist, how variation form exhibited challenges as well as opportunities for expressive performance

• Explored how variety and unity could be reconciled through variation form, focusing on the performer’s role in introducing new musical materials and interpreting repetitions

Methods and Strategies in Piano Practice (Video Episodes)

March 2021

• Presented an online lecture series consisting of five 30-minute video episodes

• Elaborated content developed from the 60-minute lecture bearing the same title given on October 7, 2020

Methods and Strategies in Piano Practice

October 7, 2020, Shenyang, China

• In addition to giving numerous masterclasses and a recital as a visiting pianist, presented a 60-minute lecture with piano demonstration, targeting piano-major students at the Shenyang music conservatory

• Focused on a scientific approach to effective methods and strategies in piano practice

• Highlighted topics: divide and conquer, deliberate practice, and associative thinking

Extermination of Reality - Moving into the Purely Psychological Realm

April 3, 2019, The Juilliard School

• Presented a 25-minute lecture, exploring the theme of mysticism in the early 20th century with Schoenberg’s 6 Little Piano Pieces (Op. 19) as a case study

• Adopted an interdisciplinary approach, referring to the early 20th century in terms of multiple fields: music, literature, philosophy, psychology, as well as formal and natural sciences

Programming Skills & Experience

• Programming Languages: Python, Go, Javascript/Typescript

• Academic Typesetting & Music Engraving: LaTeX, LilyPond, MuseScore

• Programming Frameworks: JupyterLab, Music21, Angular.io, GNU Toolchain, Docker

Personal Website

2015 - Present

• Full-stack development of my personal website from scratch, covering duties such as content curation, website architecture design, responsive layout design, PWA-support, and continuous deployment

Project “Juilliard Imagination”

2020 - 2021, The Juilliard School

• Juilliard Imagination was a project aiming to construct an interactive exhibition space located in the Tianjin Juilliard School. The project explored multimedia-based user interaction, thereby creating an unique experience for the visitors to explore Juilliard’s exclusive collection of manuscripts and recordings

• Served as technical and artistic consultant, mediating communications between the engineering team at Sony and the project team at Juilliard

• Assisted software development by engineering and proposing suitable data structures to represent musical entities, enabling effective measure-marking of manuscript scores as well as synchronization between audio and visual indicators

Digitization of Library Media

2019, The Juilliard School

• Developed a software solution, streamlining the process of digitizing Juilliard’s recording archives, making more than 500 CDs available to the entire school community through the online system known as Jmedia

Invertible Counterpoint Companion Web Application

2017, The Juilliard School

• Developed a companion web application for a graduate course in counterpoint, facilitating the process of computing chord charts necessary for solving invertible counterpoint exercises

• The development combined domain-specific knowledge of invertible counterpoint and software realization of music-theoretic ideas using technology stack for web application

• App URL: https://invertible-counterpoint.github.io