Piano Faculty

Gloria Chuang - piano (JSS2, Piano Seminar)

Gloria Chuang, piano, won the National Young Keyboard Competition of Taiwan at age 11, under the tutelage of her father and Robert Scholz. Her success led to her United States' debut, soloing with the San Francisco Youth Symphony.  She holds both a Bachelor's and a Masters of Music from the Juilliard School in New York City. She then received her Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1993, where she was the recipient of the Regents Scholarship.

Gloria is a third-generation teacher of music in her family. While serving as a university faculty member, she was the appointed Distinguished Artist to Taiwan for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Tamkang University. As an ambassador of international relations through music, she performed, spoke and administered master classes to students in high schools and universities in Taipei. Some of Gloria's past performance venues have been: Alice Tully Hall, Paul Hall, Bruno Walter Auditorium, Weill Recital at Carnegie Hall, the Institute of the Arts, the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, the Landmark Center, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison/UW Whitewater. She has been twice the featured artist with the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra of Minneapolis.

Aside from performing Dr. Chuang has been adjudicator for numerous competitions and festivals, and a clinician for many workshops.  Gloria is the Chair of the Independent Music Teachers for WMTA, and a faculty and staff at University of Wisconsin in Madison and assistant professor of piano at Winona State University.  She is also a violinist at the Edgewood Chamber Orchestra and in the Bayfield Piano Quintet.

Sergio Gallo - piano (Piano Seminar, Piano Pedagogy Seminar)

Sergio Gallo joined Georgia State University in fall 2006, having previously served as faculty at the University of North Dakota and Millikin University. Dr. Gallo received his degrees from the Conservatoire Européen de Musique in Paris (Diplôme d'Excellence), the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest, Hungary, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (Master of Music and Artist Diploma) and the University of California (DMA). He has performed with orchestras throughout the Americas and in Turkey, as well as for Radio France and Radio Cultura. Recently, Dr. Gallo performed and taught in several countries in Asia and Europe, as well as in major cities in the United States and in his home country, Brazil. In addition, he has served as the adjudicator for the International Piano Performance Examinations in Taiwan.

Dr. Gallo is the winner of concerto competitions of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra and the University of California Symphony. He has received a grant from the Henry Cowell Incentive Funds at the American Music Center in New York, NY, and has toured North Dakota with a Challenge America Fast-Track Review Grant award from the National Endowments for the Arts.

Sergio Gallo is a Bosendorfer artist and records for the Eroica label.  His recordings have been reviewed by Gramophone Magazine and American Record Guide.

Marina Beretta Hammond - duo-piano (JSS1)

The Hammonds made their debut as a duo in 1991 at the V Latin-American Music Festival in Caracas, Venezuela. The Hammonds have played at the IX Contemporary Music Festival in Alicante, Spain and in the Chamber Music series at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid. They have toured Argentina repeatedly, playing in Buenos Aires, Rosario, Cordoba and Concepcion. The Duo has given many performances as recitalists and with orchestra in the United States, Venezuela, Spain and Argentina.

Fred Hammond, born in Venezuela, received his Bachelor and Master of Music from The Julliard School. He is currently teaching piano at the Young Pianists Program of the Indiana University and IUPUI Music Academy. He has played in Spain, France, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and the United States. Marina Berretta-Hammond, born in Argentina, graduated from the National Conservatory of Music and in 1992 received a Master of Music at Indiana University where she is on the adjunct faculty.

Catherine Herbener - piano ( YAS, JSS1& 2, Piano Seminar)

Catherine Herbener, piano, appears as a collaborative artist in recitals throughout the United States. As a member of the Bachman Trio, she participated in the touring program of the Nebraska Arts Council, received three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and participated in a cultural exchange with the Republic of Tajikistan. Ms. Herbener often performs and premieres new works of music. She frequently concertizes with oboist William McMullen. They have been heard in numerous recitals, master classes and conferences. In 2002, their recording of 20th Century British Music for Oboe and Piano was released by Crystal Records. Ms. Herbener has also recorded on the Vienna Modern Masters label and her performances are heard regularly on Nebraska Public Radio. Ms. Herbener operates a piano studio in Lincoln, Nebraska and is on the faculty of Concordia University.

Hsing-ay Hsu - piano (Visiting Artist, New Music - YAS)

Since making her stage debut at age 4, Chinese pianist Hsing-ay Hsu (“Sing-I Shoo”) has performed at such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and abroad in China, Japan, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and France.  Upon entering her freshman year at Juilliard, she won the 1996 William Kapell International Piano Competition second prize.  Hsu was also winner of the prestigious Juilliard William Petschek Recital Award in 2000, a 2003 McCrane Foundation Artist Grant, a 1999-2001 Paul & Daisy Soros Graduate Fellowship Award, and a 1997 Gilmore Young Artist Award.  She was also named a US Presidential Scholar of the Arts by President Clinton at the White House.  Her debut CD (Pacific Records) has received critical acclaim, and Albany records just released her solo CD of Ezra Laderman’s piano works.

A versatile concerto soloist performing Bach to Barber, she is described by the Washington Post as full of “power, authority, and self-assurance.”  Concerto collaborations include the Houston Symphony Orchestra as first-prize winner of the 2003 Ima Hogg National Competition, the Baltimore Symphony, the Pacific Symphony(CA), Florida West Coast, New Jersey, Waterbury(CT), China National, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Xiamen orchestras. Television and radio feature broadcasts include Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion Live from Tanglewood, NPR’s Performance Today with Martin Goldsmith, TCI cablevision’s Grand Piano Recital (CA), CPR’s Colorado Spotlight, China Central National TV, Hong Kong Phoenix TV, and Danish National Radio.

An advocate of new music, she has given numerous world premieres including Ezra Laderman’s Piano Sonata No. and Beshert; Ned Rorem’s Aftermath (2002) for baritone and piano trio; Daniel Kellogg’s scarlet thread at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and his Momentum, which she commissioned for the 1998 Gilmore International Keyboard Festival; as well as Du MingXin’s Piano Concerto No.3 at the Gulangyu International Piano Festival Opening Gala. Chamber music appearances include Weill Hall and Bargemusic in New York, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Detroit Art Museum, Denmark’s Viborg Hall, Taiwan’s Novel Hall, and a 2007 all-stars gala in Hong Kong for the 10th anniversary of the reunification. Recent projects include collaborations with mezzo-soprano Margaret Lattimore, violinist Judith Ingolfsson, choreographers David Capps and Viki Psihoyos, and a series of lecture-recitals for Olivier Messiaen’s centennial year in 2008.

Born in Beijing, Hsu studied piano with her parents and her uncle Fei-Ping Hsu, and later with Herbert Stessin at Juilliard and Claude Frank at Yale.  She was awarded fellowships from the Tanglewood Music Center, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, the Aldeburgh Britten-Pears Programme, and the Aspen Music Festival.  She has served as visiting piano faculty at Ohio University and University of Colorado, given residencies at the University of Missouri Kansas City and Xiamen University, and is currently the Artistic Administrator of the Pendulum New Music Series at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where she resides with her husband, composer Daniel Kellogg. Visit her website for more details.

SoYoung Lee - piano,(RRMC Music Director, YAS, JSS1 & 2, APS, APPS)

SoYoung Lee, newly appointed Music Director at Rocky Ridge Music Center, received her Doctorate in Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of California, Santa Barbara.  SoYoung is involved with a number of innovative chamber music and dance projects including Bach2Brazil and In the Mist chamber ballets in collaboration with choreographer Viki Psihoyos, a newly commissioned of chamber opera by composer/librettist Daniel Felsenfeld titled The Bloody Chamber based on the fairytale of the Bluebeard's Castle, and a multi-disc recording project of Schumann's piano works with pianist Sergio Gallo.  She has held director positions at Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory Adult Education/Preparatory Department, Millikin University Preparatory Division and the Boulder Arts Academy/Boulder Ballet.  SoYoung served on the music faculty at Millikin, State University of New York, Fredonia and most recently, served as visiting Piano Pedagogy faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  She attended the University of Birmingham and the Birmingham School of Music in England, the University of Southern California and the University of California at Santa Barbara on a full music fellowship.  SoYoung is equally at home as a performing artist, teacher, producer, and arts administrator.

Santiago Rodriguez - piano, (Artist-in-Residence, 2nd & 3rd week - YAS)

Santiago Rodriguez is an internationally recognized concert pianist. Winner of the Silver Medal at the Van Cliburn International Competition and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Shura Cherassky Recital Award, he has given recitals all over the world, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls, the Kennedy Center, Leipzig's Gewandhaus, and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the London Symphony, and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestras. He is the interim chair of the piano division, professor, and artist-in-residence at the University of Maryland School of Music.

Hugh Sung - piano (YAS, Visiting Artist, YAS last two weeks)

Pianist Hugh Sung has been an active soloist and chamber musician ever since his debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 11. Two years later, he was accepted for studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, where his principal teachers included Eleanor Sokoloff, Jorge Bolet, and Seymour Lipkin, along with Karen Tuttle and Felix Galimir for chamber music.

Throughout his studies and subsequent to graduating with a Bachelor of Music, Sung has performed in major cities throughout the Americas, England, Canada, South Africa, Japan, and Korea. Mr. Sung has been presented at some of the world's most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Wigmore Hall, The National Gallery of Art, and The Ravinia Festival. He has made several guest appearances at radio stations throughout New York City, Rochester, Philadelphia, and New Zealand, and was featured on NPR's nationally syndicated "Performance Today" performing works by Clementi, Ravel, and Mussorgksy. His concerto engagements have included performances with the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, annual appearances with the Masterworks Festival Orchestras since 1998, and extensive tours with the  South Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, he was presented on Japanese National Television NHK in collaboration with violinist Aaron Rosand during a recital in the esteemed Ouji Hall in the Ginza district of Tokyo.

In addition to his solo endeavors, Sung has continued to receive critical acclaim for his work as an ensemble musician. He has been featured in the Philadelphia Orchestra's Chamber Music series, and has also collaborated with such distinguished groups and artists as The American Quartet, the Diaz Trio, Jeffrey Khaner, Julius Baker, Hilary Hahn, Leila Josefowicz, composers Jennifer Higdon, Robert Maggio, Harold Boatrite, and violinist Aaron Rosand, with whom he has recorded extensively under the Biddulph and Vox labels. His work can also be heard under the I Virtuosi, CRI, and Avie labels.

In 1993, Sung joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, and currently serves as its Director of Instrumental Accompaniment and its world-renown Student Recitals Series.

Sung maintains an active website (www.HughSung.com/blog/) which combines his love of music and passion for technology, and serves as a rich resource for musicians looking for a friendly place to learn more about adopting technology to enhance their art and lifestyle. He is an early adopter of technologies like the Tablet PC, which has enabled him to completely convert his paper music library into a digital format, and innovative new performance presentations like the Visual Recital (www.VisualRecital.com), which combines images, animation, and video clips in a live recital setting fully synchronized and controlled by the musician. Sample music and video clips can be found both on his website and on his profile at MySpace.com (www.myspace.com/hughsung).

Naoko Takao - piano, (YAS)

Naoko Takao, piano, is the winner of many top prizes including the 7th San Antonio International Piano Competition, and has been actively performing as recitalist, orchestral soloist, and chamber musician in the United States, as well as in Canada, France, Taiwan, and Japan. Currently a faculty member at Levine School of Music in Washington, D. C., she performs regularly with such noted ensembles as Smithsonian Chamber Players and Santa Fe Pro Musica. She has studied piano with Santiago Rodriguez, Anne Koscielny, Raymond Hanson, Nathan Schwartz and Andre Watts and chamber music with the Guarneri String Quartet