NATCHITOCHES – A guest artist recital featuring Yung-Chiao Wei on bass and pianist Chaoi Chou will be presented at Northwestern State University on Friday, Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public. A livestream will be available at capa.nsula.edu/livestream.
The program will be works by Beethoven and Brahms.
Hailed by the New York Concert Review Inc. as “phenomenal” for her Carnegie Hall debut recital and described by the Miami Herald as “A two sided-talent–a competition-winning pianist turned double bass virtuoso,” Yung-chiao Wei is an acclaimed international double bass soloist and educator who believes in the transformative power of music and the vital role of bringing musical performance and education to communities.
Currently a professor of double bass at the LSU School of Music, Wei is also founder and artistic director of the Louisiana Bass Festival, co-founder of the Connect2Music Project and author of “Effortless Ways of Playing the Double Bass.” A frequent adjudicator in major double bass competitions (International Society of Bassists Solo Competition and International Sperger Competition for Double Bass), Wei also enjoys her students’ success in major national and international competitions (National YoungArts, International Society of Bassists, Stulberg International String Competition), orchestra and university positions both in the U.S. and abroad, Grammy nominations and founding a youth orchestra in Brazil, with the mission of bringing music to the underprivileged.
Wei’s honors include Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars, LSU Teaching Award, Taiwan Young Concert Artists and both the second prize and audience prize in the First Izuminomori International Double Bass/Cello Competition (Japan). As a chamber musician, Wei has collaborated with Leon Fleisher and James Ehnes. She has served as principal bassist in the New World Symphony, New York String Orchestra (Carnegie Hall), Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra (Boston), and has traveled to four continents to give concerts and master classes at sites include Opera Bastille (Paris), Royal Danish Academy of Music, Yale School of Music, Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory, Boston University, Berlin University of the Arts, Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Japan Double Bass seminar, Montreal Chamber Music Festival, Taipei University of the Arts, Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and Shanghai Conservatory.
Chou has demonstrated versatile expertise in performing classical and new music in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. She has performed in prestigious halls like the Eastman Theater in Rochester, New York, the Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Copenhagen Opera House, the Izuminomori Hall (Japan) and the National Recital Hall in Taipei as well as significant institutions like the Universität der Künste Berlin, the Shanghai Conservatory and the Central Conservatory (Beijing, China).
As The Strad magazine has praised her, “There is plenty to admire in her technique and sound.” Chou has performed both world premieres and Taiwan premieres of music by such composers as David Del Tredici, Don Freund, John Harbinson, Dinos Constantinides, Charles Wuorinen, Ming-Hsiu Yen, Matthew Tommasini, SanSan Chien, Hsiao-Lan Wang, Chialin Pan, Koji Tomotani and Paul SanGregory. A frequent performer at U.S. double bass conventions and the European Double Bass Congress, Chou has also served as an official pianist for the European Double Bass Congress of 2012 in Copenhagen and again for the 2016 Congress in Prague. During those events, she collaborated with some of the world’s most important double bass performers and has performed the premieres of many double bass compositions.
She studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy before earning her BM, MM and DMA degrees at the Eastman School of Music. Chou is an assistant professor of general music at the Kaohsiung Campus of Shih Chien University in southern Taiwan.
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Yung-Chiao Wei, left, and Chaoi Chou will be perform at Northwestern State University on Friday, Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall.
