Originally from the Washington DC area, NYC-based pianist and educator Fifi Zhang has performed in venues throughout New York City, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Miller Theatre, and Steinway Hall, as well as concert halls in Finland, Spain, South Korea, and Poland. She has premiered several works by contemporary composers and has collaborated with dancers of New York City Ballet.
At age eleven, Fifi made her debut with the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic playing the Saint-Saëns G minor concerto, as the national grand prize winner of the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic Concerto Competition, and is one of a handful of musicians to have won both the Junior (2008) and Senior (2010) divisions of the national MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) high school competition. She has spent summers at the Banff Centre’s Piano Master Classes, Sarasota Music Festival, Chautauqua Institute Piano Program, and New Paltz Piano Summer, and has been a finalist in the Juilliard Concerto Competition.
An alumnus of the Columbia-Juilliard Exchange, Fifi holds a BA in History from Columbia University and an MM in Piano Performance from Juilliard. She also attained a performance diploma from Mannes School of Music. Former teachers include Ursula Oppens, Pavlina Dokovska, Matti Raekallio, and Julian Martin.
Fifi is currently a doctoral candidate at CUNY Graduate Center, where she is working on a critical examination of classical music performance through a phenomenological lens. She also maintains a private teaching studio, giving piano lessons to students of all ages and levels.
