PROJECTS

Lecture Recital: Performing Nikolai Medtner's Fairytale

Nikolai Medtner's Skazki (Fairy Tales) constitute one of his most distinctive compositional genres often overlooked by the public. This lecture aims to combine epigraphy and poetry as reference in Medtner's Fairytale and his approach to piano techniques to form a performance guide attending to Medtner's interpretation.

(access to lecture recital link)

The Other Side of the Staff: Teaching Collaborative Piano to Non-Pianist Musicians

This research aims to provide functional keyboard skills for non-pianist musicians in a collaborative setting. Through reading, communication, listening and applying related practice strategies, non-pianist musicians could develop a reasonable level of collaborative piano skills given a short span of time. The presentation is co-conducted by Jimmy Cheung and Angela Lau at the MTNA Collegiate Symposium 2023.

Re-examining Nina Simone's Role and Ambivalent Relationship in Civil Right Movement

This paper focuses on Nina Simone's Role and active participation in Civil Right Movement through her compositions: Mississippi Goddam and Four Women. As a classically trained musician and diverging into popular artist, Simone's composition could be viewed as a link to her personal life and social events. I will discuss the impact brought by the Civil Right Movement protest songs to Simone and society at the time. Through differentiation in musical styles of her non-protest music, Mississippi Goddam and Four Women were widely promoted with the emphasis on lyrics.

Beethoven Symphony No.9 by Piano Four Hands

This project features Beethoven Symphony No.9 transcription by Hugo Ulrich for Piano Four Hands. Hugo Ulrich is known for writing arrangements for piano four hands, his notable works include complete set of Haydn and Mozart's symphonies and quartets. By studying Ulrich's transcription of Beethoven Symphony No.9, it is easy to unwind his witty writing to fit the symphony within one piano.