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Grace Fong

About this Artist

GRACE FONG is a prize-winning pianist with an international career as a concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and contemporary keyboardist. Praised as “positively magical” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), and “immediately a revelation” (Arizona Central), the American pianist has gained critical acclaim in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. She has been featured at major venues from Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, to the Kennedy Center, Phillips Collection, Hollywood Bowl, Great Hall in Leeds, Reinberger Hall at Severance Hall, the Liszt Academy in Budapest, and Konzerthaus Dortmund, Germany. She has performed as soloist with the Halle Orchestra in the United Kingdom, the Polish Chamber Orchestra, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, among many others. In the 2014/15 season, Fong debuts as soloist with the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra under Valery Gergiev.

Described by one critic as possessing “technical brilliance, infectious energy and sheer enjoyment of music making” (BC News), Fong is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including the prestigious Leeds in the United Kingdom, Bosendorfer, San Antonio, Viardo in New York, and Cleveland. Special prizes have included “Best Performances” prizes of Baroque, Classical, and contemporary works, as well as the “Jury’s Selection” prize. Fong is also the winner of one of America’s most prestigious piano awards, the 2009 Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship of the American Pianists Association. She also won the Grand Prize in piano from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, thereafter named a “Presidential Scholar in the Arts,” and was presented with a medallion by the President of the United States at the White House.

Born in Los Angeles, Fong did her undergraduate studies as a Trustee Scholar (award of full tuition) at the University of Southern California, where she completed a double major and minor. At USC, Fong was awarded the prestigious Renaissance Scholar Prize, and was named the USC Thornton School of Music Keyboard Department’s “Most Outstanding Student.” She completed her graduate studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she studied with Sergei Babayan, who describes Fong as “not only a true artist and an exciting virtuoso, but a sensitive poet who can speak about the most important of subjects through the craft of her hands.” Her teachers and mentors include Babayan, John Perry, Louise Lepley, Paulina Drake, and Norberto Cappone.

Fong is currently the Director of Keyboard Studies at Chapman University Conservatory of Music, where she was awarded the faculty excellence award. She is also faculty at Claremont Graduate University, teaching and advising Doctoral Candidates of Piano performance. An enthusiastic supporter of the education of young musicians, Fong has served as guest artist and teacher at the Innsbrook Summer Festival, the New Hampshire Music Festival, the Montecito Summer Festival, and the Schlern International Music Festival, among many others.

Fong has embarked on a series of collaborations with dancers, filmmakers, fashion designers, and artists, and also enjoys performing music that crosses the genres of classical, jazz, and Latin lounge. She is a frequent guest artist with three-time Grammy nominee Pink Martini, which has been described as the house band of the United Nations. Other collaborations have included work with dance choreographer, Alicia Okouchi-Guy; performances with Grammy-winning ensemble, the Parker Quartet; a recital with winner of the Classical Brit Award, four-time Grammy-nominated Daniel Hope, for Paramount Pictures; and a filming in London for a music video by Oscar-nominated & multi-award-winning film director Mike Figgis, in collaboration with designers Jimmy Choo and Boudicca. For more information, please visit pianistgracefong.com.