San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

 

Helen Lin

Helen Lin's professional engagements have ranged from performing as a full-scholarship recipient in Tanglewood Music Festival (where she was selected to join the final concert with the world outstanding musicians to perform Schumann's A Minor Piano Quintet), Tchaikovsky Music Festival, and Wagner Music Festival, to touring as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician in Germany, France, Austria, Russia, Italy, Spain, the United States, Japan, Korea, and her native country, Taiwan. Since 1996, her performances have been broadcast on television and radio stations frequently throughout the United States including TV channel 22 and the radio station WGUC in Cincinnati. The American Music Scholarship Association has made her performance of Chopin's E Minor Piano Concerto as an educational videotape.

Among the numerous prizes she has won, the most recent ones have included "The Young Artist International Piano Competition", the "IBLA Grand Prize International Piano Competition", the "Rising Star Concert Series Piano Competition." In December 2000, she was invited to give a concert tour in Taiwan; during the tour that concert in The National Concert Hall in Taipei was an outstanding success, she was such a sensational phenomenon during her performances that the tickets were sold out in the first three days, the Taiwanese President Mr. Chen had delivered a congratulatory telegram at the time of the concert and the Taipei City Mayor also arranged a basket of flowers to be sent before the event started. Lin's winning at the "Rising Star" also scored the first major success for the Electronic Media Division at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

In May, 2001, she was invited to play a solo recital in Barcelona, Spain, hosted by Maria Canals International Piano Foundation; a solo recital in Paris, France, hosted by Yamaha Artist Concert Series; two solo recitals and a concerto concert in Muenchen, Germany; a solo recital in Barletta, Italy; and a concerto concert in Como, Italy. Since 2000, she has a collaborative piano-duo relationship with Russian pianist Sergei Babayan (Casadasu gold medallist and Artist-in-Residence in The Cleveland Institute of Music). She has been giving concerts in the University of Dayton and Miami University at Oxford since 2002. Lin was the accompanying pianist for the Lima Piano Concerto Competition in March, 2003. In the same year, she was voted as one of the top eight musicians in the world by the Web Concert Hall International Competition.

Her new released CD "In Remembrance of September 11th" has become the "text book" at universities for music appreciation classes. Her concert "Dream of Love" will be broadcast on PBS TV station in the Fall. Lin's performance has been described as "charismatic, contagious, of the highest level from which she communicates the essence of music combined with her vivid imagination and outstanding pianism…."; "…unique as she exhibits great individuality, command, and unusually strong musical conviction with fiery temperament."

Besides her career as a concert pianist, she is a master teacher and artist in residence at the Community Conservatory of Music in Doylestown, a suburb of Philadelphia. She was also the Resident Artist at Premier Pianos for Steinway Pianos in Cincinnati, 2005. Lin was a member of piano faculty at Preparatory Department, an opera coach at Opera Department, and a staff accompanist at String Department at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in the past. She holds her students' recitals regularly under the sponsorship of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Premier Pianos. After receiving a Master of Music at CCM, she has continued her studies under the multiple gold prize winners and the most wanted piano teachers in the USA, the Pridonoff Duo and the eminent scholar James Tocco for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and Literature. She has attended the Juilliard school of Music and Michigan State University for her Bachelors Degree where she was under the guidance of Tchaikovsky gold medalist Chen-Zhong Yin and Van Cliburn gold medalist Ralph Votapek.

Lin's CDs are available at Tower Records, Philadelphia; Borders Bookstores, Barnes and Noble bookstores; and Joseph and Beth Bookstores.


Additional funding provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts.