“We couldn’t move our piano to New York, so I played on the Columbia University pianos every weekday until we moved to Beaverton, Oregon. In the unpredictable New York environment, I learned from an early age, with encouragement from my mom, not to be disturbed by external factors and to keep peace within,” recalls Angie, who experienced her youngest years in Manhattan. “I am thankful for these early memories of building grit and really, a foundation for my entire musical career, as I learned to focus on being one with the instrument no matter what was happening around me. I also became accustomed to practicing on different pianos so sitting down at a new piano even 15 minutes before a performance never fazed me.”
After moving to Beaverton, her grandmother gifted Angie a piano. She attended public school and her parents made it their goal to give her a normal childhood experience. She was never forced to go practice and even as she became more advanced, her mom prioritized efficiency over quantity of hours. Angie actually recalls spending more time doing sports, such as Saturday ice-skating lessons at Lloyd Center, swim team practice in Olympic-sized pools, and tennis lessons. To add to her fearlessness, Angie’s ice skating lessons were in a large public mall, so falling down was done in front of hundreds of strangers.
Even though Angie is a fourth-generation musician, her mom was the opposite of a stereotypical “Backstage Mom”. Angie’s mom strongly believed that a career in music should be one’s personal choice. She knew Angie was very advanced for her age and truly loved music with a pure heart, so she shielded her daughter from junior competitions and encouraged her to learn more and more repertoire. After she entered Juilliard at age ten, her longtime Juilliard professor told her mom that Angie had more repertoire in her hands than all of her doctoral students.
At age 7, she took up cello after her mom asked her to pick an orchestral instrument to learn. After just a year, she auditioned and entered Portland Youth Philharmonic, which gave her the experience of following a conductor and playing symphonic works – very different from the solitary life of a pianist. Angie says that these experiences allowed her to feel so free playing concerti with orchestra, and chamber music.
Music was Angie’s first language. Even as a small child, she listened more than she spoke. This trait is something we can hear in her playing. Angie has received comments such as, “I can tell you are listening to the decay of every note.” And “The silence in your music is just as potent as your notes.”
Today, Angie leverages her past experiences and channels them into her performing and coaching career.
“I am honored to be recognized for my multi-faceted portfolio career: performing, teaching, speaking, and entrepreneurship,” states Angie. “I will continue doing work with integrity.”
Extended Bio
American artist Angie Zhang is a multi-faceted musician whose established career reflects her dedication to artistic and teaching excellence. Known for her striking interpretations of well-known, underplayed, and contemporary works in both traditional and innovative settings, she is in demand globally as a dynamic soloist, chamber musician, educator, and speaker.
Equally at ease on modern and historical pianos, her programs and polished performances as a prolific soloist have captivated musicians and audiences alike since her recital debut age 8 and concerto debut age 10. Since then, she has performed regularly, over 40 times, with professional orchestras around the world and includes the entire Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin concerti in her hands, among others. After entering Juilliard age 10, she won the concerto competition a record three times and used time away from the piano to actively contribute to the community in college as Student Council President for three years.
Frequently re-engaged with her extensive solo and concerto repertoire as well as for her engaging and genuine persona, she has graced important stages in North America, Central America, Europe, and Asia. She has appeared at major festivals including Bravo! Vail, La Jolla Music Society, Music@Menlo, Aspen, Sarasota, and Paderewski, and has major debuts and tours coming up in the Americas and Europe.
A top prizewinner at a myriad of national and international competitions, including the International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments and the Honens, Zhang is also the Grand Prize Winner of both the Music Academy’s Innovation Institute and Yamaha Young Performing Artist Competition. She also won the Aspen Music Festival and School Concerto Competition unanimously with Mozart’s Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491.
A seasoned chamber musician, she has performed with the Dover, Aeolus, and St. Lawrence String Quartets as well as Itzhak Perlman, Paul Huang, Stefan Jackiw, Zlatomir Fung, Xavier Foley, and Paul Neubauer, among others. She was also chosen as an inaugural member of the Juilliard Honors Chamber Music Program and has attended Perlman Music Program. As an educator, she has been invited to give masterclasses and lecture-recitals at universities, conservatories, and summer festivals in the US and Europe.
Her unique career trajectory stems from her relentless pursuit of authenticity – fidelity to the score and the composers’ intentions – as well as capturing the soul of the music on both historical and modern instruments. An avid explorer of repertoire on both the fortepiano and modern piano, her concerts are the essence of what it means to reimagine and recapture the spirit of the music, as well as rediscover a fuller narrative of the piano. Born with synesthesia, her overlapping of auditory and visual sensations coupled with deep knowledge of historical instruments composers wrote for and played on produces informed yet spontaneous renditions that both shock and inspire.
She holds a BM and MM degrees with Honors from Juilliard (Kovner Fellow) and a second MM in Fortepiano Performance and DMA from the University of Michigan. She won top convocation awards from both schools upon graduation. She is co-founder and director of the ModernPlus Music Festival as well as educational ventures that empower piano/string learners and music appreciators as well as provide platforms for her fellow music colleagues. Mentors include Yoheved Kaplinsky, Joseph Kalichstein, Robert Levin, Logan Skelton, Emanuel Ax, Malcolm Bilson, Matthew Bengtson, and Peter Sykes.