Helen Sung

Helen Sung

Pianist-composer Helen Sung
Background information
Origin Houston, Texas, US
Genres Jazz
Classical
Instruments Piano
Years active 1997 – present
Labels Concord Records
Website helensung.com

Helen Sung is an American jazz pianist.

Early life

Sung is a native of Houston, Texas, and is of Chinese heritage.[1] She attended Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts,[2] and went on to receive undergraduate and master's degrees in classical piano performance at the University of Texas at Austin.[1] She first heard jazz music during that time and eventually switched her focus.[3] She went on to graduate from Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance.[4] Highlights of the two-year program include performing at the Kennedy Center and touring India and Thailand with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.[5]

Later life and career

Now based in New York City, Sung won the 2007 Kennedy Center's Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition[6] and was a semifinalist in the 1999 Monk Institute Piano Competition. She has five albums to her credit, including a 2011 debut CD on Steeplechase Records: (re)Conception[7] and a 2nd CD (a live recording) on Sunnyside Records: Going Express.[8] Her Sunnyside debut Sungbird After Albeniz was a jazz-classical project;[9] Helenistique (her sophomore release on Fresh Sound Records) was praised by the JazzTimes as "one of the year's most exciting listens".[10] Sung's latest album is her 2014 debut on Concord Records, entitled Anthem for a New Day.[11]

Sung appeared on Marian McPartland's NPR Piano Jazz program,[12] and appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival,[13] the Detroit International Jazz Festival,[14] the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival,[15] Seattle's Earshot Festival,[16] the Kennedy Center's Mary Lou Williams Festival.[17] She has been featured at the Wigan International Jazz Festival,[18] China's Jz Festival,[19] India's "Jus' Jazz" Festival,[20][21] Poland's Kalisz International Jazz Piano Festival,[22] and her NuGenerations project toured southern Africa as a US State Department-Rhythm Road Jazz Ambassador.[23]

She has worked with notable jazz artists including Clark Terry,[24][25] Slide Hampton, Ron Carter,[26] Jon Faddis, Wayne Shorter,[27] T. S. Monk, MacArthur Fellow Regina Carter, and Terri Lyne Carrington (Sung performed on Carrington's Grammy-winning Mosaic Project CD).[28][29]

Sung produced a jazz residency program for under-served students (through a Chamber Music America/Doris Duke Foundation grant),[30] conducts workshops/master-classes, and joined the Berklee College of Music as an Associate Piano Professor in the Fall of 2011.[31] She has completed composition commissions for the West Chester University Poetry Conference,[32] arts organization JazzReach,[33] the artisanal North Coast Brewing Company,[34][35] and was selected as a 2010 NYC Spaces/Con Edison Composer-in-Residence at Flushing Town Hall.[36]

Notable

Discography

References

  1. 1 2 "Sunnyside Records: Artists: Helen Sung". www.sunnysiderecords.com. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
  2. ↑ "Alumni Resources / Distinguished HISD Alumni". www.houstonisd.org. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
  3. ↑ "LondonJazz: INTERVIEW: Helen Sung". www.londonjazznews.com. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
  4. ↑ "Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz". monkinstitute.org. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
  5. ↑ "Jazz@Bucknell: Helen Sung Quintet". www.bucknell.edu. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
  6. ↑ Tamarkin, Jeff. "2013 Mary Lou Williams Festival". www.jazztimes.com.
  7. ↑ Dryden, Ken (March 5, 2011). "(re)Conception". www.allmusic.com.
  8. ↑ Dryden, Ken (September 14, 2010). "Going Express". www.allmusic.com.
  9. ↑ Dryden, Ken (August 28, 2007). "Sungbird After Albeniz". www.allmusic.com.
  10. ↑ Greenlee, Steve (December 2006). "Helen Sung Trio: Helenistique".
  11. ↑ Collar, Matt (January 28, 2014). "Anthem For A New Day". www.allmusic.com.
  12. ↑ McPartland, Marian (August 8, 2006). "NPR Piano Jazz". www.npr.org.
  13. ↑ Espeland, Pamela (September 17, 2011). "'Round Midnight: A Late-Night Conversation With Helen Sung". www.npr.org.
  14. ↑ Marshall, Matt (September 12, 2011). "Detroit Jazz Festival: Detroit, MI September 2-5, 2011". www.allaboutjazz.com.
  15. ↑ "Aspen Ideas Festival". www.aspenideas.org. 2010.
  16. ↑ Kugiya, Hugo (October 24, 2009). "Earshot Jazz Festival: Week two". seattletimes.com.
  17. ↑ "2013 Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival". kennedy-center.org. May 17, 2013.
  18. ↑ "The Helen Sung Quartet". wlct.org. July 12, 2014.
  19. ↑ "The Latest From Helen Sung". jazziz.com. September 2013.
  20. ↑ "Helen Sung To Perform At Jus' Jazz". Rolling Stone India. November 2, 2012. p. News & Updates.
  21. ↑ "Jus' Jazz 2013 - James & Wes Legacy Band + Helen Sung Trio". ncpamumbai.com. November 9, 2013.
  22. ↑ Sung, Helen (November 2009). "Helen Sung at Kalisz Jazz Festival: "H-Town"". youtube.com.
  23. ↑ "U.S. Department of State and Jazz at Lincoln Center Launch 2009 Concert Tour of The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad". US State Department. January 28, 2009.
  24. ↑ Park, Dale (October 9, 2000). "Clark Terry stirs it up at Sprague Hall". Yale Daily News.
  25. ↑ Terry, Clark. "Clark Terry and The Young Titans Of Jazz – Live At Marian's". clarkterry.com.
  26. ↑ Adler, David R. (March 2009). "Helen Sung and Ron Carter". allaboutjazz.com.
  27. ↑ Ratliff, Ben. "Critic's Notebook; Beside the Bay, Reimagining Jazz". Arts: Critic's Notebook: New York Times.
  28. ↑ Turner, Mark F. (November 14, 2011). "Terri Lyne Carrington: The Mosaic Project (2011)". www.allaboutjazz.com.
  29. ↑ St. Claire, Pat (February 10, 2012). "Terri Lyne Carrington on her Grammy-nominated album, 'The Mosaic Project'". CNN Radio: CNN.
  30. ↑ "Residency Partnership Program". chamber-music.org. 2006.
  31. ↑ Sung, Helen. "Berklee College of Music".
  32. ↑ Dix, Katrina (June 15, 2009). "A serious – not solemn – conversation about poetry". Daily Local News.
  33. ↑ "She Said/She Says the History and Status of Women in Jazz". www.jazzreach.org.
  34. ↑ Lockwood, Wayne (February 12, 2014). "Pianist Helen Sung's special brew is on tap at the Jazz Standard". New York Daily News.
  35. ↑ Crocker, Ronnie (February 11, 2014). "Donation of jazzy-brew proceeds is music to the ears". Food & Cooking: Houston Chronicle.
  36. ↑ "Roster of Composers-in-Residence". Exploring the Metropolis, Inc.

External links

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