Concert

Week of September 28, 2019

Jessie Chang has received top honors in more than thirty distinguished piano competitions of national and international stature, including various first prizes. She 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 Rochester Philharmonic, the Florida Orchestra, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Westchester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the China Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Jakarta Simfonia Orchestra, and the Guangzhou Symphony.

 

Cellist Chia-Ling Chien has been the Associate Principal Cello with the San Diego Symphony since 2009. Previous positions include section cello of the Canton Symphony (OH) and the Akron Symphony (OH).  Ms. Chien was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and began playing the piano at the age of six and cello at the age of nine. Chia-Ling’s first public cello performance was a year later at the age of ten, soon followed by her first honor of winning first place of the National Taipei Youth Cello Competition at the age of twelve. Her awards include: four years of first prize wins in the Taipei Cello Competition; second prize winner of the National Taiwan Cello Competition; second prize winner of the International Taipei Chopin Piano Competition; best Bach Performance Prize for Strings at the Corpus Christi International Competition; winner of the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition; the Ellis A. Feiman Memorial Award in Cello; the Anna Sosenko Trust Foundation Award; a Colburn Foundation instrument sponsorship.  Ms. Chien has performed throughout the United States and Asia. Her festival appearances include the Pacific Music Festival, 2002, in which she was the youngest member (and was invited back for 2003 and 2004); the Blossom Music Festival; a three-year fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival and School from 2005 to 2007; the Sarasota Music Festival; and the Perlman Music Program (Chamber Music Workshop). She has collaborated over the years with many musicians such as Gil Shaham, Adele Anthony, Vivian Weilerstein, Joel Smirnoff, Herbert Greenberg and Itzhak Perlman.

Ms. Chien is a graduate of The Cleveland Institute of Music, where she received both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees (2007, 2009). Her principal teachers are Desmond Hoebig, Stephen Geber and Michael Mermagen.

 

Double bassist P.J. Cinque joined the San Diego Symphony in 2015, having previously been a member of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, Mr. Cinque has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. As an educator, Mr. Cinque served as the double bass professor at Capital University in Columbus, OH and has given masterclasses at Northern Arizona University and SooChow University in Taiwan. A native of Long Island, he received his bachelor and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, and his principal teachers include Homer Mensch, Timothy Cobb, Albert Laszlo and Owen Lee. During his studies, Mr. Cinque participated in the Pacific Music Festival and spent three summers at the Aspen Music Festival and School as an orchestral fellowship recipient.