NEPTA Speaker Biographies 2018-2019

Wynn-Anne Rossi
WYNN-ANNE ROSSI is a dynamic composer and unique music educator. Her compositions have reached audiences throughout the United States and around the world. She has over 100 publications, primarily for piano, which are widely distributed online and in music stores. Her repertoire also includes works for vocal and chamber groups, concert band and orchestra. Various commissions have been sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio, the National Endowment for the Arts, Music Teachers National Association and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Wynn-Anne has a specialty for bringing the art of composition to young musicians. She has been offering composition residencies in Minnesota schools and across the country since 2003, inspiring thousands of students to write their own music. Partnerships have included the MUNDI Project (UT), Linda Luebke String Festival (IN), St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (MN), and many more. Rossi has also written two comprehensive series which encourage young pianists to compose: Music by Me (FJH, with Kevin Olson) and most recently, Creative Composition Toolbox (Alfred). Her new video series, Wednesdays with Wynn-Anne, is now available for curious composers of all ages and levels.
Active as a presenter, Wynn-Anne is known for her innovative lectures, workshops and masterclasses. Musical outreach has taken her from coast to coast and beyond the borders of the United States to Iceland, Sweden and Mali. She lectures on a wide variety of subjects, including American music, inspired by her two popular series, Música Latina and Jazzin’ Americana.
Rossi was educated at the University of Colorado in theory and composition. Further training included choral conducting at Harvard University and jazz pedagogy through the University of Illinois. She has also studied under Pulitzer Prize recipient Aaron Jay Kernis. For more information, visit www.rossi-music.com. (Monday, September 24, 2018: “Creative Composition Toolbox” and “American Music: Jazz Meets Latin”)
Praised for his “revelatory” (New York Times) and “technically flawless, poetically inspired and immensely assured playing” (Toronto Star), pianist JIAYAN SUN performs frequently with The Cleveland Orchestra, The Hallé, Chinese and RTÉ (Ireland) National Symphony Orchestras, Fort Worth and Toledo Symphony Orchestras, Toronto and Aspen Concert Orchestras. He has conducted the Meininger Hofkapelle from the keyboard. His performances have been broadcasted on BBC, RTÉ, China Central Television, and classical music radio stations in North America. He has performed and participated in Verbier Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Aspen Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival and PianoTexas. Under the mentorship of Sir András Schiff, he was invited to give multiple recitals in Europe as part of Schiff’s “Building Bridges” project in the past season.
In addition to capturing major prizes in Leeds, Cleveland, Dublin and Toronto International Piano Competitions, playing early keyboard instruments and studying historical performance practice play a significant role in Mr. Sun’s musical activities, with critically acclaimed appearances with the American Classical Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall. Hailed from Yantai, China, he holds the Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School. He continues his studies at Juilliard as a doctoral candidate under the tutelage of Yoheved Kaplinsky and Stephen Hough. His devotion to the art of composition led him to study with the composer Philip Lasser. As the Iva Dee Hiatt Visiting Artist in Piano at Smith College, he is presenting Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas chronologically in a series of eight recitals in the 2018-2019 season.
For more information, please visit jiayansunpianist.com. (Monday, October 22, 2018: “Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven: Fantasieren, or Improvisation, as the Focal Point of Their Music”)

Jenny Tang
JENNY TANG, pianist, regularly performs in solo and chamber music recitals throughout the US. Her engagements include such venues as Jordan Hall, Sanders Theatre, Symphony Hall, Berklee College of Music, Wellesley College and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
Jenny was born in Hong Kong and began her musical studies at three with her mother, Chow Lai-Hah. At age fourteen she was awarded the Licentiate Diploma from the Royal Schools of Music (UK)in piano performance and the following year was honored as a Fellow of the Trinity College of MusIc in London. Jenny received her Master of Music degree with academic honors and distinction in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music under the guidance of Veronica Jochum, studied conducting with Tamara Brooks and Frank Battisti, chamber music with Leonard Shure and Bernard Greenhouse, and jazz improvisation with Charlie Banacos. She was a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate in piano performance with Randall Hodgkinson at the New England Conservatory.
Jenny is a Senior Music Performance Faculty at Wellesley College teaching music theory and piano performance, and is the Co-Director of the Wellesley College Chamber Music Society. She frequently collaborates with the Theatre Department at the college as music director; productions have included The Unsinkable Molly Brown, an original musical The Home Front, and Working. She is also on the faculty at Indian Hili Music In Littleton. (Monday, February 25, 2019: “A Coincidence of Chaos and Order: Works of Ligeti, Barbar and Schumann”)

Norman Krieger
A native of los Angeles, NORMAN KRIEGER is one of the most acclaimed pianists of his generation and Is highly regarded as an artist of depth, sensitivity and virtuosic flair. As the los Angeles Times put it, “Krieger owns a world of technique-take that for granted. He always knows exactly where he is going and what he is doing. He never for Instant miscalculates. He communicates urgently but with strict control. He is alert to every manner of nuance and at every dynamic level his tone flatters the ear,”
Myung-Whun Chung, Donald Runnicles, leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, Jaap van Zweden and Zubin Mehta are just a few of the conductors with whom Krieger has collaborated. Krieger regularly appears with the major orchestras of North America, among them the New York Philharmonic, los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and the National Symphony. He has performed throughout Europe, Asia and South America including tours of Germany, France, Poland, Holland Scandinavia, Korea, China, New Zealand and Israel. He recently performed at the PyeongChang Music festival In Korea. In September 2014, he recorded the Brahms Sonata Op. 1 and the Piano Concerto No.2 with the london Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Philip Ryan Mann, which will be released on Decca. In recital, Krieger has appeared throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico and ASia, while chamber music collaborations have included appearances with soprano Sheri Greenawald, violinists Paul Huang, Sarah Chang, Pamela Frank and Mihaela Martin, violist Nobuko Imai, cellists Myung Wha Chung, Jian Wang, Edward Aaron and Frans Helmersen as well as the Tokyo string quartet. His debut at New York City’s prestigious Carnegie Hall and Mostly Mozart Festival earned him an immediate invitation to Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series. Krieger made headlines by being named the Gold Medal Winner of ‘the first Palm Beach Invitational Piano Competition.
He began his studies in los Angeles under the tutelage of Esther Upton. At age 15, he became a full-scholarship student of Adele Marcus at The Juilliard School where he earned both his Bachelor and Master degrees. Subsequently, he studied with Alfred Brendel and Marla Curcio in london and earned an Ailist Diploma from the New England Conservatory, where he worked with Russell Sherman.
A champion of contemporary music, he features the music of John Adams, leonard Bernstein, John Corigliano, Daniel Brewbaker, Donald Crockett, Judith SI. Croix, Lukas Foss, Henri lazarot and Lowell Liebermann among his active repertoire.
Krieger is the founding artistic director of The Prince Albert Music Festival In HawaiI. Since 2008, he has served on the summer faculty at the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina. From 1997 to 2016 he was a professor at the Thornton School of Music at.the University of Southern California. In August 2016 he was appointed Professor of Piano at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. (Monday, March 25, 2019: “Leonard Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety and Beyond”)

Gilles Vonsattel
GILLES VONSATTEL A ‘wanderer between worlds’ (Lucerne Festival), Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Comfortable with and seeking out an enormous range of repertoire, Von sattel displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he has in recent years made his Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philhannonic, Gothenburg Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony debuts, while performing recitals and chamber music at Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His most recent 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed … a study in intensity” by The New York Times.
Reengaged by the San Francisco Symphony, he has also appeared with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Quebec, Boston Pops, Nashville Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Staatskapelle Halle, and L’orchestre de chambre de Gensve. Chamber partners include musicians such as James Ehnes, Frank Huang, lIya Gringolts, Nicolas Altstaedt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Stefan Jackiw, Jorg Widmann, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, Anthony Marwood, Paul Neubauer, Paul Watkins, Philip Setzer, Emmanuel Pahud, Karen Gomyo, David Jolley, Ida Kavafian, and the Swiss Chamber Soloists. He has appeared in concert with the Pacifica, Orion, Ebene, Danish, Daedalus, Escher, and Borromeo Quartets. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary works, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jorg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. His 2011 recording for the Honens/Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s classical albums of the year, while a 2014 release on GENUINlArtist Consort received a 5/5 from FonoForum and international critical praise. His latest solo release (2015) for Honens of Scarlatti, Webern, Messiaen, Debussy, and George Benjamin’s Shadowlines received rave reviews in Gramophone, The New York Times, and the American Record Guide.
Recent projects include Berg’s Kammerkonzert with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, a tour with Jorg Widmann and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Mozart concerti with the Vancouver Symphony and Florida Orchestra, performances at Seoul’s LG Arts Centre and at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, collaborations with Kent Nagano with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and the Munich Philharmonic (Bernstein’s Symphony No.2, The Age of Anxiety) as well as numerous appearances internationally and throughout the United States with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Von sattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and makes his home in New York City. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist. (Monday, April 22, 2109: MasterClass with Students Performers)