Annie Jeng is a performer, educator, and collaborator who strives to forge creative pathways between diverse communities and the arts. She is a Presser Award recipient and has performed at Hill Auditorium, Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, New York’s Tenri Cultural Center, Italy, Spain, and China. For the past three years, she has been the Artist Fellow of the Brancaleoni International Music Festival in Piobbico, Italy. She recently performed Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major with the Ann Arbor Symphony and Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotique with University of Michigan’s Contemporary Directions Ensemble.

During her undergraduate studies at New York University, Annie started the music series, “Music with a Vue,” at Bellevue Hospital to bring music to patients, workers, and visitors of the hospital. Her most recent project, “Music by the Barrel,” challenged the traditional concert experience by hosting a music series at the local Ann Arbor Distillery. Annie is also involved with University of Michigan’s Prison Creative Arts Project, by facilitating music workshops in prisons in the Southeast Michigan.

Her commitment to contemporary music and collaborating with composers has led to performances with Yarn/Wire, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Tony Arnold, members of the JACK Quartet, and Amy Williams. Her doctoral dissertation focused on researching the contemporary piano repertoire and the techniques and notations that are utilized. Her latest project, Circles and Lines, is a pedagogical resource of newly commissioned works by female composers that will introduce extended techniques and unconventional notations to intermediate students. The project was funded by the highly selective Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. Annie is also the pianist and Educational Programming Coordinator of Four Corners Ensemble, a Pierrot ensemble that is committed to championing works by living composers and collaborating with diverse communities.

Annie has participated in New Music on the Point, Nief Norf Summer Festival for Contemporary Music, the Gijon International Piano Festival, and the Amalfi Coast Piano Festival. She has had faculty positions at the Schoolcraft College Piano Academy and the Faber Piano Institute. Annie received a Bachelor’s in Music (BM) and a minor in Public Health from New York University where she studied with Miyoko Lotto and Dr. Jose Ramon Mendez. She completed her Masters in Music (MM) at the University of Michigan and received her Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Piano Performance and Pedagogy with Dr. Logan Skelton and John Ellis. She currently teaches at University of North Carolina at Greensboro as Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy.

Through an accomplished career as speaker, recording artist, solo performer, chamber musician, and pedagogue, flutist Erika Boysen is among classical music and interdisciplinary performance’s leading innovators. Particularly knowledgeable in the use of dance, Boysen has been referred to as “The Moving Flutist” for her uniquely evocative collaborations; both in performance and as a means for teaching artistic concepts. For her demonstrative expertise and virtuosic performance, she has been invited in Europe, Asia, and by over a dozen US states to perform in recital, teach master classes, and lead creative workshops.

Whenever possible, Dr. Boysen believes in combining the power of music, movement, and theater to create, both through collaboration with dancers and actors as well as through moving herself while performing. To this end, she has performed theatrically inclined work by composer Kate Soper, fully choreographed interpretations of existing work from composers such as Toru Takemitsu, and entirely new work commissioned from composers such as Jane Rigler. With highlight showcases in multiple years of the National Flute Association Convention, these performances have earned Boysen international recognition, including features on The Flute View and Flute Talk and requests to conduct workshops and masterclasses at universities and festivals across the world.

As a “seated” performer, Erika also takes the stage frequently as a chamber musician. Though she regularly performs in a number of chamber ensembles, most decorated has been her role in the Four Corners Ensemble (4CE), a sextet of flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano dedicated to international collaboration. Recent 4CE performances have included recitals in Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn’s Areté Venue and Gallery, Shanghai Conservatory, the Hartt School, and at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland, where the ensemble premiered works by composers Shuying Li, Ye Leishuo, and Jakub Polaczyk. Other performances with chamber groups such as the Seen/Heard Trio and COLLAPSS have resulted in numerous accolades, including the honor of selection as a fellow at the inaugural Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab.

Boysen has also had an active career inside the recording studio, with three full-length albums to her name. This includes the upcoming release of Listening to Movement, a video album on mobile app that features Boysen as “The Moving Flutist,” as she performs newly commissioned works combining singing, speaking and moving. In addition to the music itself, the album experience features interviews by the composers, performer and behind the scenes footage of the recording process.

In addition to her primary position as Assistant Professor of Flute at UNCG, Boysen has held numerous faculty positions of note, including both on the faculty of Interlochen’s Arts Camp and Arts Academy.

A Haynes Ambassador Clinician, Erika Boysen is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. She received her Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan, where her dissertation recitals featured collaborations with spoken word, dance, and visual art. Further education comes from the New England Conservatory and University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She is grateful to her former teachers, who include Amy Porter, Paula Robison, Dr. Tadeu Coelho, Dr. Kimberly Helton, and Mark Sparks.