Joseph Di Piazza has performed extensively in the United States, Canada, and Europe as a recitalist, chamber player, and soloist with symphony orchestras. He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards including: Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto soloist in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Chopin recital at the Chicago Art Institute as winner of the Chicago’s Women’s Club Piano Competition, MacDowell recital at Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University as winner of the Illinois National Federation of Music State Competition. In addition to numerous University guest artist recitals such as the University of Alberta, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Kentucky, other venues include the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for the Performing and Cultural Arts, and Concert Series at the Art Museums of Washington DC, Cincinnati, North Carolina and Kentucky. He has participated as a performer, clinician and adjudicator in festivals at Interlochen, Michigan; Eastern Music Festival, Greensboro, NC; Chicago Spring Arts Festival; Beethoven Festival on Long Island, NYC; and Focus on Piano Literature Series at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Music. Concerto performances include the canon of Russian Romantic Concertos: including Tchaikovsky 1^st and Rachmaninoff 2^nd and 3^rd with numerous Symphonies.

The UNCG Symphony Orchestra is a highly select ensemble of approximately ninety performers majoring in music. Performers include undergraduates through masters and doctoral candidates in music performance and music education. Membership in the organization is highly competitive, and all students are placed by audition. Members of the Symphony have achieved numerous individual honors including solo competition awards on regional and national levels, music scholarships, undergraduate teaching fellowships, graduate assistantships and fellowships, and membership in honors ensembles.

The UNCG Symphony Orchestra periodically tours the state and region, and has recently performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and at the Stevens Center in Winston-Salem, NC. A recent review in the Classical Voice of North Carolina described the Orchestra’s performance as, “dramatic and incisive,” and “beautifully done.”

In addition to the performances of standard orchestral literature, the Symphony Orchestra collaborates annually with the UNCG choirs to present a major choral/orchestral work. Faculty, as well as winners of the annual Student Artist Competition, are often featured as soloists. The Symphony combines with the School of Music Opera Theatre and the UNCG School of Theatre to perform a fully staged opera production each spring semester. String performers who are not majoring in music are especially encouraged to participate.