Annie Jeng is a pianist, educator, and collaborator. She is committed to listening, learning, and becoming a better member of society with the hopes of paving roads for justice, collaboration, and kindness in communities. She has performed widely in such settings as the Brancaleoni International Music Festival in Italy, the Gijón International Piano Festival in Spain, the Kennedy Center, Interlochen Arts Academy, and China. (However, she sometimes prefers to perform in intimate spaces such as living rooms, personal Zoom calls, and breweries.) Recent performances have included Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with UNCG’s University Symphony Orchestra, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, Messiaen’s La ville d’en haut with the University of Michigan Symphony Band, and Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques with the University of Michigan Contemporary Directions Ensemble. A Presser scholar, Annie has presented at Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) conferences at collegiate, state, and national levels and College Music Society (CMA) regional conferences.

Annie’s essential goal as an artist is to make communities richer and more meaningful through the arts. To this end, Annie strives to make music accessible to audiences of all backgrounds by expanding and rethinking the traditional recital format to include interdisciplinary and interactive elements, all with the aim of encouraging audiences to engage with the artistic experience. Recent projects include, “Music by the Barrel,” which was a concert series at the Ann Arbor Distilling Company in Ann Arbor, “Beyond the Keys: Unlocking Piano Works” which was an interactive concert on the roof of a parking deck performed by her piano pedagogy students, and “Brews-keys” which featured UNCG piano faculty and students at Oden Brewing Company in Greensboro, North Carolina. She also led music workshops that focused on group singing and music as a form of expression through the Prison Creative Arts Project at University of Michigan.

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Annie personally picked up and delivered keyboards to UNCG piano students in order to ensure that music within student’s lives would not be stopped. As a strong believer of creating a better and more equitable “normal,” she also founded A Seat at the Piano (ASAP) in the summer of 2020 (aseatatthepiano.com). ASAP is a resource that is dedicated to the promotion of inclusion in the performance and study of solo piano repertoire.

Much of Annie’s research is devoted to contemporary music and studying the pedagogical capabilities of contemporary piano techniques. In 2018, Annie received the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship from the University of Michigan to create a pedagogical resource called Circles and Lines that will feature newly commissioned works by female composers that introduce unconventional piano techniques to intermediate pianists. She is also the pianist of Khemia Ensemble (khemiaensemble.com), a contemporary chamber ensemble that is dedicated to promoting contemporary classical music by cultivating inclusive place-making, collaborative mentorships, and authentic storytelling through immersive, multimedia performances. She released the album, “World Map” with Parma Recordings as the former pianist of Four Corner’s Ensemble. Committed to supporting musicians in finding their unique career path, she also worked as a Programming Assistant at University of Michigan’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship, Career Empowerment & Leadership (EXCEL) Lab. She also serves as a member of the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP) Career Development and Innovation Committee.

Annie received her MM in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan and her BM in Piano Performance with a minor in Public Health from New York University. She received her DMA in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Michigan in 2019. Her teachers include Logan Skelton, José Ramón Mendez, Miyoko Lotto, Anne-Marie McDermott, and Faye Bonner. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. (anniejeng.com)

The UNCG Wind Ensemble is a highly select concert band of fifty performers majoring in music at the UNCG School of Music. Performers in the current Wind Ensemble are drawn from sixteen states, Slovenia, and Hong Kong. The ensemble has enjoyed a distinguished record of performance throughout its history. In January 1992, the UNCG Wind Ensemble performed “A Tribute to John Philip Sousa” to a capacity crowd of 2,700 at the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Twice, the Wind Ensemble earned critical acclaim from The Washington Post following concerts in the nation’s capital. The Wind Ensemble has performed throughout the eastern United States in recent years including the first-ever performance, in 1987, by a North Carolina collegiate ensemble in Lincoln Center, New York City. The Wind Ensemble performed that same year in West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. The Wind Ensemble has recorded nineteen commercially-available albums which have received widespread praise.

In 1985, the Wind Ensemble performed a series of concerts with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer-conductor Karel Husa. In 1988, the UNCG Wind Ensemble performed in New Orleans, Louisiana by invitation of the College Band Directors National Association for the Southern Division convention. On a number of occasions, the Wind Ensemble has commissioned and premiered works from leading band composers. In November of 1990, the Wind Ensemble performed for the Southern Division of MENC convention. In February 1994, the UNCG Wind Ensemble performed for a convention of the CBDNA and NBA in Williamsburg, Virginia. In March 1999, the Wind Ensemble performed for the national convention of the American Bandmasters Association in Melbourne, Florida. In February 2000, the Wind Ensemble performed for the CBDNA Southern Division Convention hosted at UNCG. In 2006, the Wind Ensemble performed in The Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland, shared a concert with the United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” in Arlington, Virginia, and collaborated with Karel Husa, David Dzubay, and Carter Pann in the performaces of their music, including two commissions. In 2009, the Wind Ensemble performed at the CBDNA National Convention at the University of Texas at Austin and performed additional concerts in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas as part of a week-long tour. The Wind Ensemble performed at the 2011 National Convention of the American Bandmasters Association and the 2013 National Conference of the College Band Directors National Association hosted in Greensboro. Most recently, the UNCG took a twelve day concert tour through the Czech Republic, Austria, and Italy, the highlight of which was a concert in Prague’s famed Dvořák Hall.