Alvin Zhu, recent First-Prize winner of the inaugural Patrick W. Price Competition at the Eighth Texas State International Piano Festival, will present a guest recital at Baylor University on Thursday, September 14, beginning at 6:00 p.m. in Roxy Grove Hall. Zhu is recognized worldwide for his insightful, engaging, and emotionally penetrative playing. His artistry has led to acclaimed performances throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
For his Baylor recital, he will play Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne in B major, Op. 62, No. 1; Four Excursions by Samuel Barber, Op. 20; Little Brook by his grandfather, the eminent Chinese composer Gong-Yi Zhu; and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Born into a musical family, Alvin Zhu began piano and violin lessons with his parents at the age of four and studied piano with Yeeha Chiu and Marylène Dosse at the age of ten. A graduate of the five-year BM/MM Accelerated Program with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky at the Juilliard School, Zhu spent one year pursuing an Artist Diploma with Peter Frankl at Yale University’s School of Music. After being awarded the C. V. Starr Foundation Doctoral Fellowship at Juilliard, he returned to New York to pursue the Doctor of Musical Arts degree under the tutelage of Dr. Kaplinsky and Professor Julian Martin. Over the years, Zhu has participated in master classes with such luminaries as Gary Graffman, Emanuel Ax, Lang Lang, Murray Perahia, Leon Fleisher, Malcolm Bilson, Robert Levin, Jon Nakamatsu, and Misha Dichter.
At the Juilliard School, he is currently a Teaching Fellow for graduate Music History and undergraduate Music Theory. This coming year—as the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship—he will research the musical contributions of his paternal grandfather Gong-Yi Zhu, a master piano pedagogue whose influence in China is still widely felt today. At the end of his year at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Zhu hopes to introduce Gong-Yi’s teachings to the world and finally give due respect to an international figure in music history.
This recital is free of charge and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor University School of Music at 254-710-3991.