Cecilia Lo-Chien Kao

Education

University of Colorado Boulder, DMA in Collaborative Piano
The University of Texas at Austin, MM in Collaborative Piano 
National Taiwan Normal University, MA in Collaborative Piano
National Taiwan Normal University, BM in Piano Performance

About

Taiwanese Pianist Cecilia Lo-Chien Kao enjoys performing in a wide variety of settings, including chamber music, opera, orchestral ensembles, new music ensembles, and choral music. She has collaborated with many distinguished artists, including Lynn Harrell, Stefan Jackiw, Robert McDuffie, Bion Tsang, Gerardo Riberio, David Coucheron, Jennifer Stumm, and many members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.

Kao is currently the coordinator of collaborative pianists of the prestigious Meadowmount School of Music, founded by Ian Glamian in Westport, New York. She has been a collaborative pianist at Columbus State University and Mercer University in Georgia, where she worked with students of the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings.

She has appeared at Carnegie Weill Hall and can be heard with cellist Bion Tsang on his CD The Blue Rock Sessions (2017). She was also a member of the Boulder Altitude Directive, a modern music ensemble dedicated to commissioning and performing new music, during their inaugural season. Cecilia has received fellowships from both the Aspen School of Music and the Music Academy of the West, where she studied with Jonathan Feldman. She was also a chamber music artist at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival in Florida.

Kao holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Collaborative Piano from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied with the pioneer pedagogue, Anne Epperson. Before her move to the U.S., she was one of the first pianists to receive the Master of Arts degree in Collaborative Piano from National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, where she also received her bachelor's degree in Piano Performance. Her principal teachers include Anne Epperson, Margaret McDonald, Alexandra Nguyen, Elizabeth Pridgen, Chi-Chen Wu, and Shu-Cheng Lin. Kao is currently the Assistant Professor of Professional Practice and Collaborative Piano Artist at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.