Huang will perform selections from Scarlatti, Debussy, Ravel and Liszt at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, September 13, at the Louis Armstrong Theatre of the Performing Arts Center, Allendale Campus. A public reception will follow. Tickets are $10, available through any Star Tickets Plus outlet, by phone at (616) 222-4000 or (800) 585-3737, online at www.starticketsplus.com, or in person at the Louis Armstrong Theatre Box Office weekdays from noon to 5 p.m.
For the first time, Grand Valley piano students will have the opportunity to attend a Master Class to learn directly from a Van Cliburn winner. The day before her concert performance, Huang will conduct the class from 3-4 p.m. in the Louis Armstrong Theatre. While the class is open to students and the public to listen and observe, only one or two students will be given the opportunity to play and be given a one-on-one critique.
Event coordinator Aviram Reichert said it is very difficult to pick the student(s), but the possibility of selection acts as an incentive. Reichert won the Bronze Medal at the 10th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997 and joined the artist-faculty at Grand Valley in the fall of 2001.
"Part of the excitement of having the winners perform here," said Reichert, "is that the audience gets to hear the top musicians of the future, while they are new and still shaping their careers."
A recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Huang is currently pursuing her master's degree at the Julliard School of Music. At the age of 12 she was accepted on full scholarship as the youngest student in the Shenyang Music Conservatory's pre-college division. Two months after moving to the United States, in 1998 at the age of 15, she made her U.S. debut on the Prodigy Series of the La Jolla Music Society.
A top prizewinner at several recent national and international competitions, Huang has performed throughout China, Europe and the United States, including recitals in Germany's Klavier Festival Ruhr, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, and Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. She has also collaborated with the Charleston, Fort Collins, Fort Worth, Pacific, and Sydney symphony orchestras, as well as with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Illinois and Shenzheng Philharmonic Orchestras.
A prelude concert of carillon music will be presented by Julianne Vanden Wyngaard, University Carillonneur, 7:20 at 7:50 p.m. at the Cook Carillon Plaza. Huang's performance begins Grand Valley's Fall Arts Celebration, now in its third year. This showcaseof the arts brings acclaimed musicians, poets, artists, dancers and scholars to the West Michigan community, mostly free of charge. For more information and a complete schedule call (616) 331-2180 or visit www.gvsu.edu/fallarts.
