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The Korean-American pianist, Caroline Hong, began the study of piano at the age of 3 with her mother. Among her most influential teachers are Sergei Babayan, Jerome Lowenthal, and Dmitrii Paperno. Entering the Peabody Conservatory at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland at age 17, she completed her B.M. through an accelerated program (with Diane Hidy) with honors recognition, and received her M.M. from the Juilliard School of Music in New York by the time she was 21. She holds a D.M. degree in Piano Performance from Indiana University with minors in Music History and Music Education (1989), and where she served as an Associate Instructor in Theory, and in Piano.
As the winner of the Chicago Civic Orchestra Soloist Competition, Caroline Hong made her debut in Orchestra Hall in a performance of Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto under the baton of Michael Morgan. She has competed internationally in the Van Cliburn International Audition, the Robert Casadesus International Competition, William Kapell International Piano Competition, UNISA International Piano Competition, Beethoven Foundation, and was selected to compete in the Montréal International Piano Competition. She made her debut at Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall as a winner of the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition (New York), and has received numerous other prizes, including Distinguished Performer of the Palm Beach International Piano Competition, 1st prize in both Society of American Musicians (Chicago, Illinois) and Music Academy of the West Competition (Santa Barbara, California). In her pre-college days, she was named Orange County's Best Pianist, and was a top winner in the Bach Festival of Southern California. She has been a featured performer on Robert Sherman's "Young Artists Showcase" (New York Times Radio) and numerous other radio broadcasts throughout the nation as well as abroad in Pretoria, South Africa..
Caroline Hong maintains a successful balance between a performing career and teaching. She has received critical acclaim as soloist with symphonies in the nation, including the Utah Symphony Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Crystal Cathedral Symphony, Los Angeles Korean Philharmonic, and the Indiana University Philharmonic, among others. Since 2011, she is a collaborative pianist for members of the Columbus Symphony and the Chamber Music Columbus Society. She was recognized as "one of the greatest pianists I have ever heard" by the Pulitzer Prize and Academy award-winning composer John Corigliano after her performance of his Etude Fantasy (1976). The Columbus Dispatch wrote of the same performance that it was "breathtaking" and "hard to imagine a better performance." She has also been praised by critics for her "expressive and powerful playing," "formidable technique" (Richmond Times Dispatch), as well as her "keen sense of lyricism and the classical style."
As a chamber musician and collaborator, Caroline Hong has performed with well-known groups such as twice with the Vermeer Quartet, closing their final season in 2007, and with the Dorian Wind Quintet in March 2009. She was a member of Great Lakes Performing Artists Association from September 2000 to June 2005, playing Piano-Violin Duo with Concertmaster of Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Charles Wetherbee.
Caroline Hong served as an associate instructor in both Piano and Theory at Indiana University, as well as Assistant Professor at Longwood University (September 1994-May 1997). Since 1997, she is on the School of Music faculty as Associate Professor of Piano at The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio. In July 2005, she was appointed the first female piano faculty at the "Piano at Peabody Program" of the Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, where she returns every summer. She gives there one week program for piano lovers inclusive of solo recitals, lectures, master-classes, and teaching. As a teacher, she specializes in Contemporary Music, Piano Performance. Since her tenure at OSU, she has been an invited lecture-recitalist for the Chautauqua Institute in New York, the Ars Viva II Series at Goucher College in Maryland, and has given recitals and master-classes at the Seoul Arts Center, Seoul National University, Tanguk University, Dongduk University, and Ewha Womens' University. She has adjudicated for the Bartok-Kabelevsky International Piano Competition, MTNA, Columbus and Chicago Symphony Youth Soloist Competition among others. She will add Europe to the list of teaching engagements in the summer of 2013.
Caroline Hong is a well-established doctoral advisor and thus her advisees have come to her from prestigious institutions including Indiana University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Seoul National University, Mozarteum (Salzburg, Austria), and the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. After becoming a mother in 2011, she has recommitted to specializing in undergraduate teaching as well, and to that end is developing a publication, Creative Technique, designed with college students’ needs at the undergraduate level in mind. Her graduate class continues to flourish alongside her renewed attention to the undergraduate population at OSU. Hong has an impressive list of 18 DMA graduates, with seven student winners of the OSU DMA Concerto Competition, and two DMA Document Award winners.
Caroline Hong is a Steinway Artist and member of the American Liszt Society, and has recorded for Mark Records and Fleur de Son which was reviewed favorably by American Record Guide. |
