Biography
American pianist Dr. Angie Zhang is recognized as one of her generation’s true artists. A top prizewinner in numerous competitions, including the International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments, American Piano Awards, Honens, and a three-time winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition, she has graced notable festivals and concert series such as the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, La Jolla Music Society, Perlman Music Program, Music@Menlo, Sarasota Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival. She is also the Grand Prize Winner of the Music Academy of the West’s Innovation Institute Competition.
As a recitalist and chamber musician, she has performed in a myriad of major venues across four continents to great acclaim. She has also been a soloist over 40 times with professional orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, Indianapolis Chamber and Symphony Orchestras, Juilliard Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, Missouri Symphony Orchestra, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, and many more. Conductors include herself, Fabio Luisi, Jeffrey Kahane, JoAnn Falletta, Jose Antonio Molina, Kirk Trevor, and others. Repertoire includes the entire Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff concerti.
As a collaborative pianist, she has performed the entire works of Beethoven for cello and piano with Zlatomir Fung, and worked with many artists including Martin Beaver, Sterling Elliott, and Xavier Foley. She has shared the stage with the Dover Quartet, Aeolus Quartet, Itzhak Perlman, Inon Barnaton, Tessa Lark, Stefan Jackiw, and more. Her collaborative precision and deep understanding of the music has won her numerous accolades and praise by institutions, competitions, and artistic directors.
She has also commissioned and performed over 50 new works. She has also championed works by female, BIPOC, and non-binary composers, as well as underplayed works that deserve more attention on both fortepiano and modern piano.
Through her performances, educational ventures, and community engagement, she skillfully brings together diverse groups of people, demonstrating her commitment to uniting audiences through music in a contemporary manner. She is the founder and co-director of the ModernPlus Music Festival and founder of MusicFitness. Dr. Zhang is also an accomplished and acclaimed fortepianist and leading American figure in period instruments.
Her two-disc CD of Chopin works on an original Graf and Pleyel, including the E minor Concerto with period orchestra, is produced by the Polish National Institute of Frederic Chopin. It has been praised as truly “...respecting and brilliantly realising the notations of the composer’s text, caring for elegance and nobility of sound, putting as much sensitivity as possible inter her interpretations…will more than once have the chance to enchant world audiences with her art,” by Marcin Majchrowski.
Dr. Zhang holds a Bachelor of Music (BM) and Master of Music (MM) from The Juilliard School, as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) from the University of Michigan and a second MM in fortepiano performance. She won the top graduation awards at both institutions upon graduation, as well as academic honors from both, and chamber honors from Juilliard. Her influential teachers include Veda Kaplinsky, Logan Skelton, Joseph Kalichstein, Emanuel Ax, Malcolm Bilson, and Tobias Koch. She is a Bosendorfer and Yamaha Worldwide Artist.