Pianist Kuang-Hao Huang is coming to Mizzou later this month for a four-day residency that will include public performances on Saturday, February 24 and Sunday, February 25.

Huang (pictured) will perform with Mizzou faculty mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley in a concert at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 24, presenting works by Alban Berg, Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern, Hanns Eisler, and Olivier Messiaen.

Then at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 25, Huang will accompany Mizzou students singing and performing in an all-Messiaen concert of chamber music.

Both performances will take place in Whitmore Recital Hall on the Mizzou campus. Admission to Saturday’s concert is $5 for the general public, free to Mizzou students, staff and faculty with ID. Sunday’s concert is free and open to the public.

While he’s in Columbia, Huang also will give a talk to Mizzou student composers about contemporary piano techniques on Thursday, February 22 and coach the Mizzou New Music Ensemble in a rehearsal on Friday, February 23.

Known as an advocate of new music, Huang has performed throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Asia. Notably, he gave the world premiere performances of solo works by Louis Andriessen and 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival distinguished guest composer Chen Yi at Weill Hall in New York City as part of Carnegie Hall’s “Millennium Piano Book” project.

Huang also has premiered numerous ensemble works, including pieces by Jacob Bancks, Mason Bates, Kyong Mee Choi, Stacy Garrop, John Harbison, Daniel Kellogg, James Matheson, and Laura Schwendinger.

His collaborative projects include membership in the Fulcrum Point New Music Project and work with the Chicago Chamber Musicians Composer Perspectives series, MusicNOW and CUBE Ensemble.
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Born in Wisconsin, Huang has degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, and Northwestern University. He currently lives in the Chicago area, where he teaches as the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and Concordia University-Chicago.

In addition to teaching at the university level, Huang has presented educational outreach programs throughout the Chicago Public Schools on behalf of the International Music Foundation, and for a decade coordinated the piano program at Northwestern University’s National High School Music Institute. He also has served as artistic director of Make Music Chicago, a day-long, citywide, DIY music festival held at the summer solstice that “celebrates the musician in us all.”

When in his home city, he performs in concerts and radio broadcasts with Chicago’s finest musicians, from instrumentalists of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to singers with the Lyric Opera. Huang also has been a guest of the Chicago Chamber Musicians; has performed with the Avalon, Chicago, Spektral and Vermeer String Quartets; and can be heard in recordings on the Cedille and Naxos labels.

You can hear two examples of Huang and Julia Bentley performing works by contemporary composers in the embedded audio players below.

“Southern Harmony, 6. WINTER” by Jacob Bancks, performed by Julia Bentley, mezzo-soprano, and Kuang-Hao Huang, piano

David Dies’ setting of Rilke’s “An die Musik,” premiered at Roosevelt University in Chicago by Julia Bentley and Kuang-Hao Huang