General Biography
American pianist Dr. Angie Zhang is recognized as one of her generation’s true artists. A top prizewinner in numerous competitions, including the International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments, American Piano Awards, Honens, and a three-time winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition, she has graced notable festivals and concert series such as the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, La Jolla Music Society, Perlman Music Program, Music@Menlo, Sarasota Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival. She is also the Grand Prize Winner of the Music Academy of the West’s Innovation Institute Competition.
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In 2025-26, she is in high demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and clinician. Performances include four full chamber works (Brahms Quintet, Brahms C minor Quartet, Dvorak Quartet in E-flat major, and Beethoven Trio Op. 70, No. 2) at the Taos School of Music coached by Robert McDonald, Thomas Sauer, and the Brentano, Borromeo, Jupiter, and Cooperstown String Quartets; an appearance as guest-artist and faculty at the HKSNA Regional Conference in San Diego, giving a recital and guiding a hands-on fortepiano session for pianists; Beethoven Concerto No. 2 with the Santa Barbara Symphony; Rachmaninoff Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 43 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra; Mozart Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K. 271 with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra; Schumann Quintet with the Dover Quartet and members of the St. Louis Symphony; a solo and chamber recital for the Chamber Music Society of St. Louis; a solo recital for the Chopin Foundation Concert Season in Coral Gables; solo recitals at the Salon Piano Series in Madison, Wisconsin; and many more.
As a recitalist and chamber musician, she has performed in a myriad of major venues across four continents to great acclaim. She has also been a soloist over 40 times with professional orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, Indianapolis Chamber and Symphony Orchestras, Juilliard Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, Missouri Symphony Orchestra, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, and many more. Conductors include herself, Fabio Luisi, Jeffrey Kahane, JoAnn Falletta, Jose Antonio Molina, Kirk Trevor, and others. Repertoire includes the entire Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff concerti.
As a collaborative pianist, she has performed the entire works of Beethoven for cello and piano with Zlatomir Fung, and worked with many artists including Martin Beaver, Sterling Elliott, and Xavier Foley. She has shared the stage with the Dover Quartet, Aeolus Quartet, Itzhak Perlman, Inon Barnaton, Tessa Lark, Stefan Jackiw, and more. Her collaborative precision and deep understanding of the music has won her numerous accolades and praise by institutions, competitions, and artistic directors.
She has also commissioned and performed over 50 new works. She has also championed works by female, BIPOC, and non-binary composers, as well as underplayed works that deserve more attention on both fortepiano and modern piano.
Through her performances, educational ventures, and community engagement, she skillfully brings together diverse groups of people, demonstrating her commitment to uniting audiences through music in a contemporary manner. She is the founder and co-director of the ModernPlus Music Festival and founder of MusicFitness. Dr. Zhang is also an accomplished and acclaimed fortepianist and leading American figure in period instruments.
Her two-disc CD of Chopin works on an original Graf and Pleyel, including the E minor Concerto with period orchestra, is produced by the Polish National Institute of Frederic Chopin. It has been praised as truly “...respecting and brilliantly realising the notations of the composer’s text, caring for elegance and nobility of sound, putting as much sensitivity as possible inter her interpretations…will more than once have the chance to enchant world audiences with her art,” by Marcin Majchrowski.
Dr. Zhang holds a Bachelor of Music (BM) and Master of Music (MM) from The Juilliard School as a Kovner Fellow, as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) and a second MM in fortepiano performance from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She won the top graduation awards at both institutions upon graduation, as well as academic honors from both, and chamber honors from Juilliard. Her influential teachers include Veda Kaplinsky, Logan Skelton, Joseph Kalichstein, Emanuel Ax, Malcolm Bilson, and Tobias Koch. She is a Bosendorfer and Yamaha Worldwide Artist.
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Teaching Biography
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Dr. Angie Zhang’s artistry has been described as “warmly expressive, sensitive, and polished” and “a valuable advocate for classical music” by New York Concert Review. A top prizewinner of major international competitions such as Honens and the International Chopin Piano Competition on Period Instruments in Warsaw, and a 3-time winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition, she has graced notable festivals and concert series such as La Jolla Music Society, Perlman Music Program, Music@Menlo, Bravo! Vail, Sarasota Music Festival, Ravinia, Taos, and Aspen Music Festival. She is also the Grand Prize Winner of the Music Academy of the West’s Innovation Institute Competition. Dr. Zhang is globally sought-after as a soloist, chamber musician, and pedagogue on both modern and historical pianos, and also as a speaker and artpreneur.
Her fields of expertise, dedication to teaching, and multi-faceted career have led her to be featured as a clinician, artist-faculty, and a performing artist at a multitude of venues and established concert series around the world, as well as at institutions of higher learning and non-industry events to further cross-pollination of audiences.
Her unique method of teaching stems from almost two decades of experience mentoring, guiding, training, and giving performance opportunities to the next generation of elite piano and string talents who are admitted into top conservatories and universities with large merit scholarship and fellowship packages such as the Kovner Fellowship at Juilliard; as well as music appreciators of all ages; and future audience members who often double-major in college, lead musically-fulfilled lives, and give back to the arts community. She is currently enjoying preparing adult students for the Cliburn Amateur International Competition.
Dr. Zhang believes that the study of music is like the study of a language and is more easily done well with native-language coaches who teach the syntax, grammar, and ground rules from the get-go. Objective fundamentals are taught from the beginning, with plenty of real-life analogies spanning from sports to computer programming in tow to help students from all backgrounds understand concepts fully on a professional level. For all students, musical choices are explained and analyzed with consideration to harmony and knowledge about that specific composer’s compositional style, allowing each of her students to develop their own artistic voice and learn how not to recite or reproduce, but to create and adapt on the spot. She also recognizes the importance of healthy practice methods and an active, professional ear, so all her students get additional advice so that they can be their own teacher when the teacher is not present.
Furthermore, she mentors those who wish to pursue and embrace the art of performing, as well as playing what they wish to achieve, whether for themselves or others, without endless frustration and the same recurring problems. Dr. Zhang helps them deal with performance anxiety and consistency/accuracy issues by teaching them the science and physics behind every articulation mark or gesture, busting musical myths, providing personalized listening recommendations, preventative practices, mental and physical exercises at and away from the instrument, and providing year-round masterclasses and asynchronous material/courses through MusicFitness, founded 2021. She helps prepare high-achieving high schoolers and sometimes-admitted middle schoolers, pre-professionals, college students, and adult learners for long-term musical success and joy at record-breaking efficiency and improvement. Because of the unique design and content, participation is structured to ensure it does not conflict with existing commitments, both musically and otherwise, and was developed with professors and industry experts to tackle and provide real help on elements that are frequently neglected due to the existing structure of lessons, diversity and equity barriers, and typical formats of study.
Dr. Zhang also creates and finds performance and teaching opportunities for those ready for them, guiding them through the many steps necessary before and after each performance so that each one becomes a personal milestone and something happy to remember; she credits the faculty at Music@Menlo and Taos School of Music for first providing this level of support for her generation.
In her studio, she fully believes, and sees the result, that everyone is able to understand and play music. Dr. Zhang does not “dumb down” explanations of technique or musical goals based on background of study so that each student gets the highest level of teaching and musical exploration. She observes and acknowledges that the word “talent” or “I’m not talented enough” is thrown around and misunderstood on a large scale. In fact, Dr. Zhang believes that talent is not a necessity to play an instrument well with the correct understanding, grammar, and communication that make a language, well, a language. The key lies in the quality of teaching.
She has taught a number of college courses for undergraduates and graduates at The Juilliard School for six years, as well as led adult-learner specific classes at Juilliard, Tonebase, and EdX. She has also taught a number of college courses at University of Michigan. After completing her second year of her doctorate degree, she won an Assistant Professor of Piano and Music Theory position at Concordia University-Ann Arbor and taught an array of subjects including applied piano, applied cello, harpsichord, music theory, aural skills, music appreciation, and group piano. While there, she grew the piano studio by over double, helped prepare the students for a successful tour of the West and Southwest, and secured the university’s first ever nine-foot piano for the students, faculty, and the entire community to enjoy on a daily basis, whether for piano lessons, choir practice, or rehearsals with the band when she was the featured soloist in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which they performed together at Hill Auditorium.
She credits her mom, Helen Wang, for her wisdom as her first teacher, guiding Angie through her own method that included Russian-school technique and early pieces, true musicality, a wide range of repertoire, weekly sight-reading, hundreds of Czerny (done well!), and a holistic approach to musicianship. A standard of excellence and efficiency of practice and improvement were also taught to all her mom’s students from the first lesson, so that allowed all students to reach a certain higher level of learning and performing seen more in the East.
She credits her late Portland-based piano teacher Dorothy Fahlman and cello teacher India Zerbe Jobelmann, principal cellist of the Oregon Symphony for 25 years, for guiding her musical spirit before she was admitted to The Juilliard School Pre-College Division for both piano and cello at age ten. Their work with her, along with Grammy-nominated conductor and former principal percussionist of the Oregon Symphony, Niel DePonte, have served as forever inspirations as teachers and mentors. Dr. Zhang’s love and familiarity of learning, premiering, and sharing new music on stage stemmed early from all three, and their dedication to professional development and arts education are elements of what Dr. Zhang incorporates into her own teaching of piano teachers across three continents and adult learners.
Finally, she credits her beloved Juilliard and University of Michigan professors of piano and chamber music, such as Yoheved Kaplinsky, Joseph Kalichstein, Robert Levin, Emanuel Ax, Jerome Lowenthal, Wu Han, David Finkel, Logan Skelton, Matthew Bengtson, Joseph Lin, and many more who have passed on knowledge from the musical greats and their own work. Dr. Zhang’s method includes distillation of this knowledge, amassed over each lesson at school and top music festivals in the country, in her teaching. She also gives special thanks to Malcolm Bilson and Tobias Koch for their mentorship.
Dr. Zhang holds a Bachelor of Music (BM) and Master of Music (MM) from The Juilliard School, where she graduated with academic and chamber honors, and received the Peter Mennin Award for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music at Commencement. She also holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) and a second MM in Fortepiano from the University of Michigan, where she graduated with the highest honors and the Earl V. Moore Award, given to top graduates, as well as a Certificate in Entrepreneurship.