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The Chinese pianist, Yongmei Hu [Yong Mei Hu], started to play the piano at the age of 5, participated as a soloist at the Shanghai Spring Festival at the age of 10 and attended the middle school of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at the age of 12. She earned her Bachelor of Art degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Professor Nathan Schwartz, a pupil of the legendary French pianist Alfred Cortot. Yongmei graduated with a MFA in Piano Performance from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). During those years, she studied with Professor Aube Tzerko, the assistant to the legendary pianist Artur Schnabel, and also studied with the famous Russian pedagogue Vitaly Margulis. In addition, Yongmei has worked with great pianists like András Schiff, Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Gyorgy Sebek, Yefim Bronfman, Stephen Kovacevich and Fou Ts'ong. Yongmei has won numerous prizes in competitions.
Yongmei Hu has performed Frédéric Chopin’s E minor piano Concerto at the prestige Rudolfino Dvorak Hall in Prague with the Musici de Praga orchestra to great success. Yongmei has toured Russia performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow; with the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra at the Big Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg; and with the Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Opera House in Azerbaijan to great success. In June 2006, she performed Johannes Brahms’ D Minor Piano with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center-Concert Hall.
Yongmei Hu has also performed many solo recitals including recitals at the Carmel Music Society's subscription Recital Series, the Los Angeles County Museum recital series which was live radio broadcast on K-Mozart. Yongmei has performed on KQED radio in San Francisco, has appeared on Grand Piano Television, and the Pacific Abroad Television. Yongmei has participated in the Aspen and Banff Music Festivals, the Moulin D'Ante Festivel in France and the Russian Hulkshule in Germany.
Yongmei Hu appeared with the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in Guangzhou Xinhai Concert Hall June, 2008 played W.A. Mozart’s C Major Piano Concerto K.467 to great success; Yongmei made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in April 2007. In November 2007, Dream Makers Music signed a record contract with Yongmei. A new album of Yongmei playing Schubert’s B Flat Sonata D.960 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition will be released this fall.
Last October, Yongmei Hu togather with Melissa Etheridge performed at the Breast Cancer Symposium in Washington DC, sponsored by Hard Rock International; In October 2008, she appeared with actor Chevy Chase, and Danny Aiello in the Believe Concert in Phoenix at the Orpheum Theater fundraising for children with Cancer. It has been Yongmei's passion and vision that children are the future for classical music and for a better world. She has been very much involved with a multicultural children's foundation called Alphabet Kids. Another new album of Lullabies recorded for Alphabet Kids will be released later this year.
Yongmei Hu currently lives in Malibu, California. She maintains a busy schedule of performing and teaching. Among her students are the children of Chevy Chase, Dustin Hoffman, Pierce Brosnan, Jane Harman, Alan Horn and Alfred Mann. |
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Zubin Mehta, the world's greatest conductor and Yongmei's mentor, write: "Miss Hu has excellent control, plays with great articulation and has wonderful musical insight. I wish her the best, as I know she will make a substantial career." |
