LIVE at Piedmont Piano Company
JAZZ PIANO MASTERS SERIES
Helen Sung
with special guest Friction Quartet
Acclaimed pianist/composer and Guggenheim Fellow Helen Sung presents the music of Quartet+, her latest release on Sunnyside Records. Having lived much of her life at the intersection of different worlds — classical & jazz, and as the American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants — her desire to harmonize these worlds is at the heart of her artistry. Vividly blending jazz, classical, and beyond, Helen takes listeners on a ride through musical time & space with her original compositions as well as her arrangements of works by landmark women including Geri Allen, Mary Lou Williams, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Carla Bley, and Marian McPartland.
Quartet+ is made possible by the NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music, and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment in association with the New York Foundation for the Arts; with additional support from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. and the Jazz Coalition Commission Fund
This performance is made possible with the support of Jazz Road, a national initiative of South Arts, which is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
$25 General Admission
We are offering a limited number of tickets to attend this performance in person. Advance purchase is required. COVID-19 SAFETY: Masking is recommended but no longer required.
HELEN SUNG
A native of Houston, Texas, and alumna of its High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (where she studied classical piano and violin), Helen Sung eschewed her classical upbringing after a jazz epiphany during undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Helen went on to become part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute (now the Herbie Hancock Institute) at the New England Conservatory of Music, and win the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition.
Sung’s Quartet+ (Sunnyside Records) garnered a 4.5 star DownBeat review and inclusion in its "Best of 2021 Albums" list, and a JazzTimes cover story (January 2022 issue), while previous releases Sung With Words (Stricker Street), a collaborative project with renowned poet Dana Gioia, and Anthem For A New Day (Concord Jazz) topped the jazz charts. In addition to her own band, Helen has performed with such luminaries as the late Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band. In 2021, Helen received a Guggenheim Fellowship to create a multi-movement big band composition; one of the movements, “Wayne’s World,” won the 2022 BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize.
Helen has served on the jazz faculties of the Berklee College of Music and the Juilliard School. She is currently visiting faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an Associate Professor at Columbia University, where she also was the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at its prestigious Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute exploring the intersection of jazz and neuroscience. Helen is a Steinway Artist. helensung.com