Jessie Chang張晶晶, Pianist

Pianist Jessie Chang is admired for her beautiful tone, commanding technique, and magnetic personality. She first discovered her love for the piano when she was not even four years old and urged her parents to enroll her in the Yamaha Music School in Taipei, Taiwan. Later, Ms. Chang made her TV debut, appearing on the Taiwan Central Television when she was ten years old. Five years later, she made her concerto debut with the California State University Orchestra.

Ms. Chang attended the Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Constance Keene. At the age of nineteen, she earned her Bachelor degree and Masters of Music degree two years later and was the recipient of the “Best Female Pianist” award at both commencements. She received scholarships to attend the Manhattan School of Music from the Reachout Committee of the Los Angeles Music Center, the Young Musicians Foundation and the Manhattan School of Music. Her previous teachers included Yin Yin Huang AceVedo and Milton Stern, and she has also worked closely with renowned artists such as Menahem Pressler, Herbert Stessin, Oxana Yablonskaya and Bernard Segall.

Ms. Chang has also received top honors in more than thirty distinguished piano competitions of national and international stature, including First Prizes in the following: the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition, the Music Teachers Association of California State Solo Competition, the Los Angeles Liszt Competition, the Southern California Junior Bach Festival and the Chinese Talent Search. The Grand Prize was awarded to Ms. Chang in the Music Teachers Association of California Young Artists Guild, and additional top honors were received in the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Competition, the IBLA International Competition and the International Young Artists Piano Competition. Ms. Chang has the distinguished honor of being the first person to have won four gold medals at the US Open Music Competition.

Among the highlights of her career, Ms. Chang appeared at the Blossom Festival with The Cleveland Orchestra playing Mozart’s Double Concerto with her duo-partner and husband, Jahja Ling. She has been featured at the Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium, Pasadena’s Ambassador Auditorium and in front of 28,000 people at Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta. Ms. Chang has played with various other orchestras including the San Diego Symphony orchestra, the Florida Orchestra and the Malaysian Philharmonic. She has also performed engagements with China Philharmonic and Guangzhou Symphony.

Locally, Jessie Chang enjoys teaching, playing chamber music with members of the San Diego Symphony, singing as an alto with the Westminster Choir of First Presbyterian Church, and being the proud mom of two darling daughters, Priscilla and Stephanie.