Dr. Sarkis Baltaian

Dr. Sarkis Baltaian has gained an international reputation as a concert pianist, chamber musician, recording artist, and pedagogue. He has been praised by critics for his “beautiful tone and ability to project even the most delicate pianissimos,” and compared to George Gershwin and Oscar Levant for his performance of Gershwin’s Concerto in F. Dr. Baltaian made his Carnegie Hall Debut in 1999 and has performed extensively both as a recitalist and concerto soloist with major orchestras throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Under his dedicated teaching, Dr. Baltaian’s students have won national and international competitions and have matriculated to prestigious institutions such as the Eastman School; Peabody Conservatory; New England Conservatory; Manhattan School of Music; Oberlin Conservatory; Cleveland Institute of Music; USC; Rice University; Cornell University; Pomona College; University of Colorado at Boulder; and the University of California at Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Santa Barbara.

Dr. Baltaian has held full-time professor positions at the Colburn Conservatory of Music and The University of Alabama in Huntsville. He currently serves on the piano faculty of the Pasadena Conservatory of Music and also maintains a private studio in Orange County and Los Angeles.

Dr. Tina Chong

Hailed as “… a deity of elegance” by the New Brunswick Beacon, Dr. Tina Chong is an international award-winning pianist and sought-after teaching artist. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at San Diego State University and performs regularly with the San Diego Symphony as principal keyboardist. A native of Banff, Canada, Tina has been described as, “…mature and yet fresh, imbued with tradition and yet inhabited by individuality, the marks of an artist” (The Herald Times). 

Since her orchestral debut at the age of nine, Tina has appeared as a guest soloist with orchestras throughout the world including the Calgary Philharmonic, the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, and the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra. Tina’s recital career has brought her to such venues as the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the National Arts Centre and Rideau Hall in Ottawa, the Sala Chopin in Mexico City, and the Sheldon Center in St. Louis. She has also been featured in the La Jolla Music Society Summerfest, Portland International Summer Festival, Lachine Festival, and the WFMT Series of Chicago. Under the management of Jeunesses Musicales of Canada, Tina has gone on several whirlwind concert tours throughout Canada. 

An artist of great versatility, Tina performs in a wide range of genres such as classical, jazz, pop, Broadway, and film music in orchestra and chamber ensembles, as well as dance collaborations. Her prowess on piano, harpsichord, fortepiano, celesta, synthesizer, and harmonium have led to projects with artists such as Rachel Barton Pine, Inon Barnaton, Anthony McGill, Stefan Jackiw, and Tyler Duncan. Tina has also played regularly with the San Diego Symphony since 2017. This breadth of creative activity continues to inspire Tina’s engagement and cross-pollination with a wide community of musicians and audiences.

Tina earned her Doctor of Music degree at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music with a major in piano performance and minors in music education and historical performance practice. Her mentors were Arnaldo Cohen, Peter Miksza, and Elisabeth Wright. Tina is also a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where she studied with Angela Cheng. She has worked closely with artist-teachers Robert McDonald, Jerome Lowenthal, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Julian Martin, Arie Vardi, and Menahem Pressler at numerous international summer festivals.

Tina currently serves as Assistant Professor of Piano at San Diego State University. Prior to this appointment, she held faculty positions at the University of San Diego and Indiana University. Tina is an active international clinician, giving frequent guest lectures, masterclasses, and adjudications. She is a passionate advocate of alternatively-sized keyboards and is responsible for the recent acquisition of two reduced-sized piano keyboards at SDSU, the first of its kind in a university on the west coast.

Tina has been a prizewinner in a number of major international competitions, including the Montreal International Musical Competition and the Jacques Klein Piano Competition in Brazil. She captured first prize in the CMC International Stepping Stone Competition, the Aspen Music Festival concerto competition, Indiana University Piano Concerto Competition, and the Seneca Chamber Orchestra Competition. She is a recipient of the Indiana University Chancellor’s Fellowship for scholastic achievement and several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Tina is a Yamaha Artist.

Ning An, Pianist

Associate Professor at the YONG SIEW TOH Conservatory of Music in Singapore

Dr. Robert Watson

Professor of Music at California State University, Fullerton, pianist Dr. Rob Watson has performed solo in China, Japan, England, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, and the United States. He has also appeared in chamber music performances with the St. Petersburg String Quartet, and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pacific Symphony, and faculty of the Milan (Italy) Conservatory.

Awarded a $50,000. grant by Cal State Fullerton, he developed and now coordinates the Performance Science Centre Lab helping music faculty and students to grow as performers and teachers by applying principles of the psychology of performance, anatomy and physiology of movement, and musicians’ health and wellness. He has lectured and given presentations at international and national conferences in Asia and the United States on these topics, as well.

Dr. Judy Huang

As the Grand Prize winner of the 2004 Carmel Music Society Competition, Dr. Judy Huang has brought sensitivity, depth, and richness to her music through her versatility, lyricism, and technique. From her New York debut in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2006, and each appearance since, she has received great acclaim.

Dr. Huang has performed in concerts and given recitals around the world, from Taiwan, to the United States and Europe. As a soloist, she has performed with such orchestras as the Marina Del Rey-Westchester Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, Ventura Symphony, Redlands Symphony, Riverside Symphony, Concordia Orchestra, Crossroads Chamber Orchestra, UCLA Philharmonia, and Palermo Orchestra (Italy). As a chamber musician, she was a member of the Pro Arte Trio, which performed in the Young Artist Peninsula Music Festival and was featured in live performances on KUSC 91.5 FM. The trio was awarded first prizes in both the Chamber Music Society of MontereyPeninsula Competition and the Music Teacher Association of California Chamber Music Competition. Sharing her passion of chamber music, she is dedicated to community outreach programs and has collaborated with members of Pacific Symphony and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Dr. Huang received her BA, MM, and DMA degrees from UCLA. Her principle teachers were Robert Turner, Ming Qiang Li, Aube Tzerko, and Vitaly Margulis. She has taught at UCLA, Los Angeles Valley College, and International Institute for Young Musicians and Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana.

Dr. Huang has served as adjudicator in the MTNA Competitions in California and for the Music Teacher Association of California. Most recently, she is appointed as the State Chair of the Music Teacher Association of California Association of California Concerto/Solo Piano Competitions. Dr. Huang, a consistent national and international prize winner in solo competitions, also performs Duo Piano concerts with Turkish pianist, Fureya Unal throughout California.

Dr. Ick-Choo Moon

Praised by the Los Angeles Times for his “power, virtuosity and mastery of tone color that is vivid and evocative,” Korean-born pianist Ick-Choo Moon is the recipient of numerous awards including those from the Montreal and Geneva International Competitions, and the Gina Bachauer International Competition at the Juilliard School. In 1989, he gave a critically acclaimed New York recital debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall as winner of the William Petschek Award.

Since making his US debut with the Minnesota Orchestra under Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Moon has performed as soloist with the Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony, National Arts Center Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Leningrad Symphony, KBS Orchestra, Korean Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic and others. He has also given recitals in the US, Canada, England, Russia, France, Japan and Korea. His performances have been broadcast frequently on radio and TV in the United States, Canada and Korea.

Moon grew up in the US and Canada as well as in his native Korea and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and with Gyorgy Sebok at Indiana University where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees with highest distinction. He later received his doctor of musical arts degree from the Juilliard School where he worked with Sascha Gorodnitzki.

Currently Professor Emeritus of Piano at Seoul National University in Korea, Moon has also taught at UCLA where he headed the piano department and at University of Southern California. During the summers he has taught and performed at Brevard Music Center, the Chautauqua Institute, Festival MusicAlp in France, Amalfi Music Festival in Italy and in numerous festivals in Korea. He has also been a jury member in several international competitions such as the Cleveland, Franz Liszt (Budapest), Tchaikovsky (Moscow), Honens, Seoul, Hamamatsu, Ljubljana and others.

Dr. Hae-Young Moon

Hae-Young Moon made her orchestral debut with the San Francisco Symphony at the age of 14 as a winner of their concerto competition. She enrolled in the pre-college division of the Juilliard School the following year. During her studies there she received the Walter Damrosch Award which enabled her to study in France with Gaby Casadesus and Nadia Boulanger. After a detour as a student at Columbia University, she returned to Juilliard where she received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees as a scholarship student of Nadia Reisenberg. During her stay in New York, she was a winner of several awards including prizes in the New York Philharmonic Concerto auditions, Portland Symphony Competition and the Young Musicians Competition of New York.

Ms. Moon continued her studies at University of Southern California as a doctoral candidate under John Perry. At the same time, she worked as an assistant lecturer at USC, as an instructor in Loyola Marymount University’s pre-college division and as instructor of piano pedagogy at CSULA. She went on to teach at UC Riverside but also devoted much of her time to her private studio. Her students won many prizes such as those from the LA Philharmonic’s Bronislaw Kaper Awards, Spotlight Awards, Young Musicians Foundation scholarships, MTAC and CAPMT competitions and SYMF. Many of her students went on to study at schools such as Juilliard, Peabody, Eastman, Yale and USC. Several are currently active as performers and college faculty members in the Los Angeles area.

Although her primary interest as a musician is in teaching, Ms. Moon has performed in numerous solo and chamber music performances including those in Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall of New York, in Los Angeles, and in Korea. Until her recent return to Southern California, she spent 23 years in Seoul, Korea where, known as Hae-Young Chun, she taught at Seoul National University, Seoul Arts High School and Sunwha High School of the Arts.

Dr.Hyeyeon Jung

Associate professor of piano at Kunsan National University in Korea

The Korean Association of Piano Pedagogy. A native of Korea, Hyeyeon Jung is an active soloist, chamber musician, collaborative pianist, and educator. She received Doctoral of Musical Arts degree in piano performance and a Master degree in piano pedagogy from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her prior musical training was at Seoul National University (Bachelor of Music) and Cleveland Institute of Music (Master of Music and Artist Diploma) in both solo piano and collaborative piano. While studying in Cleveland, she was named the recipient of Dr. Joseph and Bess Scharff Leven Prize, William Kurzban Prize, and Mu Phi Epsilon Rosa Lobe Collaborative Piano Award, described as “recognizing the highest level of artistic achievement.” She has also placed in various competitions including Piano Texas International Concerto Competition, Seattle International Piano Competition, American Protégé International Concerto Competition, Southern Illinois Young Artist Competition, Seoul Music Competition, Taegu Broadcasting Corporation Competition, Korea Philharmonic Orchestra competition, and Korean Music Society Competition.

As an outstanding soloist, she has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. She appeared as a soloist with a number of major orchestra including Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Gimcheon Civic Orchestra, Gunsan Pops Orchestra, Korean Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra. She made her European debut at Rimsky-Korsakov Concert Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 2009, she was invited to the Banff Music Centre in Alberta, Canada as an artist-in-residence working with the legendary Canadian pianist, Anton Kuerti. During past summers, Dr. Jung actively has participated in numerous international music festivals including Aspen, Bowdoin, San Francisco, Kent-Blossom, University of Nebraska Chamber Music Institute, Music Alp à Courchevel in France, San Juan Piano Festival in Puerto Rico, Salzburg Mozarteum in Austria, and Sydney in Australia. She also had master classes with internationally esteemed artists such as Arie Vardi, Robert McDonald, John Perry, Richard Goode, Jerome Lowenthal, Sergei Babayan, and John O’Connor.

As an enthusiastic educator and researcher, Ms. Jung is actively involved in Music Teachers National Association and Korean Piano Pedagogy Association. She presented on “Exploring the Genre of Preludes in the Twentieth Century Teaching Repertoire for Solo Piano” at the Illinois and Arizona State Music Teachers Association conference. She also gave a lecture recital with Dr. Reid Alexander, on the subject of “Youthful and Useful Repertoire: One Piano Four Hands.” She taught at University of Illinois, Hansei University, Joongang University, Sookmyung Women’s University, and currently is an associate professor of piano at Kunsan National University in Korea.

Bruce Stevens

President - Stevens Piano Specialties, Inc.

Bruce Stevens' connection to the piano began when, at 7 years of age, he began piano lessons. These classically focused lessons continued through his senior year at Norte Vista High School in Riverside, California. In 1978, following his completion of study in electronics and earning an A.A. degree at Riverside City College, Bruce’s curiosity about the piano tuning business caused him to seek an apprenticeship with Ben Hershberger, at Morey’s Music Store, Long Beach, Ca. During the five years Bruce was at Morey’s, he experienced piano tuning, repairs, rebuilding, piano moving, piano rentals and retail sales. In 1980, he joined the Piano Technicians Guild and obtained Registered Piano Technician status one year later. In 1983 he began what would be 16 years of employment with the Los Angeles School District where he did extensive tuning, repair, and restoration. In 1998 he decided to leave the LAUSD employment and manage his own piano service and restoration business. Almost since the beginning of his career, Bruce has been a familiar face in the Piano Technicians Guild as he regularly attended chapter meetings, seminars, state, and national conventions. He has been on the board of the South Bay Chapter several times, on PTG national committees, served multiple terms as President of the California State Conference and the Western and Pacific Regional Conference and has functioned as Conference Director for both Conferences and Institute Director for WESTPAC. He is currently on the PTG Institute Committee as Audio Visual Director. He is the recipient of the PTG Member of Note award, the California State Conference Sid Stone Service award, and the Pacific Northwest Conference James H. Burton Award. In 2015 was inducted into the PTG Hall of Fame. Bruce has been the piano technician for Concordia University since 2006.

Dr. Linda Tomko

Dr. Linda Tomko is a historian, dancer, and embodier of dances past. She is Emerita faculty in the Department of Dance at the University of California, Riverside, where she chaired the department three times and taught lecture, studio, and seminar classes to students in the BA, MFA, and PhD curricula.  She studied Baroque dance with noted specialist Wendy Hilton, and she was co-director with Ms Hilton of the annual Stanford University Summer Workshop in Baroque Dance and its Music from 1995 to 2001.   Dr. Tomko has performed as a soloist in Japan, Canada, and the United States. Her collaborations with early music bands to create concerts of Baroque music and dance have included performances at the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Exhibition, the Utrecht Early Music Festival, a meeting of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the production “Elaborate Measures: Performing the Orient” at the Getty Center and Museum.

Jinyoung Chang

Ewha Womans University The Graduate School of Performing Arts

“Through her impressive interpretation, Jin-Young Chang from Korea was able to breathe new life into the piece and make it comprehensible. A great achievement” (Murrhardter Zeitung)

“with glittering shimmering colors and pearly barrels.. interpreted with subtlety" (Lippische Landes-Zeitung)

“A dynamic and unstoppable performance, with a very chewy and savory quality. It was clear what and how the performer was communicating to the audience.”(journal of music)

Pianist Jin-young Chang, who consistently receives enthusiastic praise and response from the audience, graduated from Ewha Womans University and received a Diplom at the Hochschule für Musik Köln and a Konzertexamen at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold.

She has performed as a soloist with the Ewha Womans University Orchestra and the Ansan Korean Music Orchestra, and has given numerous recitals and chamber music concerts in Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Austria, the United States, and Korea. Additionally, she has served as an accompanist for the C. Kangiesser class, a cello professor at the National Conservatory of Music in Cologne, and as an exclusive accompaniment instructor for master classes. As a duo performer, she has presented complete cycles of Beethoven's sonatas for piano and violin from 2019 to 2020 and Mozart's sonatas for piano and violin from 2021 to 2022, with a focus on academic devotion.

As a solo pianist, she began a series of concerts featuring all of Beethoven's piano sonatas, titled 'Alles besser,' in 2022. She was a visiting professor at Ewha Womans University and taught at Goyang Arts High School, Anyang Arts High School, Incheon Arts High School, Chungbuk Arts High School, Mokwon University, Baekseok University, Cheongju University, and Korea National University of Transportation. She taught piano, piano ensemble, method of teaching piano in a group setting, piano playing technique, and a liberal arts course called world music culture, which combines diverse musical expertise and traditions. Currently, She is a studio faculty member at Ewha Womans University, Ewha Womans University The Graduate School of Performing Arts, Sunhwa Arts High School, Chungnam Arts High School, Sunhwa Arts Middle School.

Dr. Elvin Rodriguez

Elvin S. Rodríguez is currently Director of Worship Arts at Immanuel Lutheran Church and Schools, and Professor of Music at La Sierra University. Dr. Rodríguez has performed in many solo and chamber recitals, and has presented at local, state, and national workshops and conferences. He has worked with regional and international prize-winning pianists of all ages, and is a frequent adjudicator, master clinician, and lecturer for advanced and professional adjudications and competitions, as well as music education seminars and workshops. His students have been accepted at top music schools nationally. He has enjoyed a long career of playing the organ in churches and conducting choirs.

Bill Cunliffe

Bill Cunliffe is a jazz pianist, composer and Grammy Award-winning arranger. He is known not only for his swinging and innovative piano trios, but for his many evocative compositions for jazz small groups, big bands, chamber music, choirs and symphony orchestras.

He got his start playing and arranging for the great Buddy Rich, and touring with Frank Sinatra. In 1989 Bill won the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition. Upon moving to Los Angeles, he performed with the Clayton Brothers and the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, and currently with the Joe La Barbera Quintet (former drummer with Bill Evans) along with his trio. He has also performed with James Moody, Benny Golson, Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, Freddie Hubbard, Bob Berg, Junior Cook, Sonny Fortune, Woody Shaw, Michael Burrell, Brecker, George Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Kenny Eddie Harris, Houston Person and Art Blakey.

His latest release, currently receiving significant airplay nationwide, is “Border Widow’s Lament” (2022, Night Is Alive Records) with Martin Wind, bass, and Tim Horner, drums.  His previous release, “Trio” (2021) was an all-star group with bassist John Patitucci and drummer Vinny Colaiuta.

He was awarded a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement for “West Side Story Medley,” on the album “Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson” (Resonance Records, 2009). His piano concerto, Overture, Waltz and Rondo, was nominated for a Grammy in 2012. Cunliffe’s film work includes the award-winning score for “On the Shoulders of Giants,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s homage to the Harlem Rens basketball team of the 1920s and ’30s.

His music has been performed by the Flensburg (Germany) Symphony, the Metropole Orchestra, the Marchigiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the Middletown (OH) Symphony, the Henry Mancini Orchestra, the Temple University Symphony and the the Reading (PA) Symphony, among others.

In addition to his work as jazz studies professor at Cal State Fullerton, Cunliffe teaches at the Skidmore Jazz Institute and the Vail Jazz Workshop. He is an internationally known jazz clinician, with several published books available from Alfred Music.  

Sung Chang, Conductor and Pianist

Pianist Sung Chang is known for his outstanding technical abilities, musical maturity, and sensitive yet powerful expression that shines through the keys. He has received critical acclaim for his “poetic imagination, superb technical skills, and, most importantly, a deep emotional connection to whatever music he plays” by Jeffrey Kahane.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Sung Chang gave his debut concert at the age of five. At 16 he was accepted into the prestigious Korea National University of Arts, and his musical virtuosity attracted international attention when he became the youngest ever to win the Nagoya International Piano Competition in Japan.

Since then Chang has gone on to win more than ten international competitions around the world including in the United States, Germany, Italy, Korea, and Japan. His impressive list of awards from the major international piano competitions includes- the first prize and the audience prize at the Chopin-Gesellschaft Hannover

Internationaler Klavierwettbewerb, the first prize and the special award for the "Best Performance of a Virtuoso Piece" at the Bösendorfer USASU International Piano Competition, a silver medal with two special prizes in "Best Performance of a Work by a Classical Composer" and "Best Performance of a Work by a Spanish, Latin American or Impressionistic Composer" at the San Antonio International Piano Competition, and a silver medal at the New Orleans International Piano Competition.

Chang currently resides in Los Angeles, California after completing further studies at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover in Hannover, Germany and the USC Thornton School of Music.