Email: acheng@okcu.edu
405-208-5630

A virtuosic concert pianist, avid chamber musician and international educator has been appointed head of the piano program at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University, an All-Steinway School.

Amy I-Lin Cheng has performed in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to the National Recital Hall of Taiwan. She is the winner of the 2000 Heida Hermanns International Young Artist Piano Competition and toured Asia after winning first place in the Rising Young Artist Series in Taipei.

The New York Concert Review calls Cheng “a natural talent,” noting “her control of the keyboard is complete, technique easy and relaxed, with a wide range of touch, color and dynamics.”

“We have been working strategically to create one of the finest keyboard departments in America,” said Mark Parker, dean of the Bass School. “By acquiring the world’s finest pianos, an inventory of 133 Steinways; by building what we believe is one of the finest music teaching facilities in the country, the Bass Music Center; by hiring an exceptional new organ professor, Timothy Olsen; and now by attracting Amy Cheng to join our faculty, Oklahoma City University’s Bass School of Music is well-positioned to become a center of excellence in the keyboard area.”

Cheng will begin her appointment on August 1. She is touring Taiwan May 28-June 15 before returning to judge the Lee University Piano Competition, June 21-24.

“I am very excited about joining the faculty at Wanda L. Bass School of Music,” said Cheng. “I believe that it is an environment that is full of vibrant energy and forward-thinking vision.”

Cheng was born in Changhua City, Taiwan, and was encouraged by her German-born piano professor, Rolf-Peter Wille, to pursue a musical career abroad. She moved to the United States at the age of 15 and went on to graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music (BM) and from Yale University School of Music (MM and Artist Diploma). She is a candidate for her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the New England Conservatory.

She made her Boston concerto solo debut at the age of 17 at Jordan Hall under the baton of Benjamin Zander, and her Manhattan debut at Merkin Concert Hall, under the auspices of the Guild of Composers. She has been concerto soloist with the Musica Viva Moscow Chamber Orchestra under Alexander Rudin, with Taiwan’s Taichung Philharmonic, and with the Oklahoma Community Orchestra under Manuel Prestamo. Her performances have been broadcast live by WGBH Boston, La Radio Suisse Romande – Espace 2, and KCSC in Edmond, Oklahoma.

“I enjoy performing in a wide range of venues,” said Cheng. “May the concerts be of solo, chamber music or concerto performances, my goal has never been different: to communicate with the audience the emotional, intellectual and spiritual contents of the music performed.”

Pianist Claude Frank describes her as “a brilliant, sensitive, imaginative and most beguiling pianist.” The Tulsa World notes her “great and startling power.” James D. Watts Jr. reviewed a recent performance: “The sledgehammer-like chords, the frenetic passage work, all were delivered with a kind of fierce energy. Yet, Cheng never resorted to histrionics. Each emotional shift was presented clearly and distinctly.”

She met her husband, clarinetist Chad Burrow, at Yale University and moved to his native Oklahoma five years ago. Burrow, the youngest principal at the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, has taught at the Bass School of Music since 2001.

Cheng and Burrow comprise Duo Clarion and are founding members and co-directors for the Brightmusic Chamber Music Series at St. Paul's Cathedral in Oklahoma City. In addition to frequent regional performances, Cheng and Burrow have performed in Asia, Europe, and on the East and West Coasts. The duo made its debut CD on the Albany Records release “Where the Sunsets Bleed: Chamber Music of Edward Knight.”

Cheng is vice president of the Chopin Society of Mid-America and active in the Music Teachers National Association and Oklahoma Music Teachers Association. She has adjudicated for the Amadeus Piano Festival Competition, Central Oklahoma Music Teachers Association, and the Music Teachers Association in Midland, Texas.

She has been on the faculty at the Franklin School of Performing Arts in Massachusetts and at Oklahoma State University, and given recitals, workshops and lectures from the University of Maine to the University of Utah.

Cheng studied extensively with Claude Frank and Wha-Kyung Byun and performed in master classes for Emmanuel Ax, Boris Berman, Leon Fleisher, Murray Perahia, Gary Graffman and Mischa Dichter. She studied chamber music with Robert McDonald, Michael Friedmann, John O’Conor, Peter Frankl, and Isaac Stern as well as for the Emerson String Quartet, American String Quartet, and Orion String Quartet.

Cheng has performed with the American Chamber Players and is a member of America’s Dream Chamber Artist in New York City. A founding member of the Goffriller Trio, she performed in the Third Jerusalem International Chamber Music Encounters in Israel, directed by Isaac Stern, and in the 1999 La Jolla SummerFest.

Cheng performed at the Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference, and in music festivals including the Académie de Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland; the Third Gilmore International Keyboard Festival; the Amadeus Piano Festival in Tulsa; International Clarinet Connection at the New England Conservatory; Taos School of Music, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.

The Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University is an All-Steinway School, an Apple Digital Campus, the nation’s first Conn-Selmer School, a member of the National Alliance for Music Theatre, and winner of ASCAP’s national orchestral award for adventurous programming of contemporary music. The school’s facilities more than doubled with the 2006 opening of the $38.5 million, 113,000-square-foot Wanda L. Bass Music Center.