Great music ... nearby
Symphony Series 3
Friday January 31, 2025, 7:30 PM
(James) Chung Yue Tien, piano
(James) Chung Yue Tien was born in Hong Kong in 2005. He expressed an interest in piano after attending a concert at age 3 and soon began playing piano in a local workshop. At age 4, he started studying piano with Dr. Helen Hoi Lun Cha. James made his concert debut at Hong Kong Citibank Plaza when he was 8.
After attending the SMU Institute for Young Pianists in 2014, James decided to move to Dallas to continue his piano studies with Dr. Catharine Lysinger as a student in the SMU Piano Preparatory Department.
James has been the winner of many competition prizes. He was awarded 1st place in the 2015 Dallas Symphonic Festival, Elementary II Concerto Division, 1st prize in the 2016 Dallas Symphonic Festival, Elementary II Sonata Division, and one of the grand prizes in the 2016 Collin County Young Artist Competition. In 2016, he won 1st place, Solo Level A, in the International Keyboard Odyssiad® Festival & Competition (IKOF) at Fort Collins, Colorado.
He was also awarded the Linda Leirfallom Brewer Award for the Best Performance of Chopin. In 2017, James won the bronze medal in the IKOF Concerto Division, and he was again awarded the Linda Leirfallom Brewer Award for the Best Performance of Chopin.
In December 2017, James began traveling from Oklahoma to Denton, Texas, to study with Dr. Pamela Mia Paul. In May 2019, at age 14, he was admitted to the Cliburn Junior International Competition in Dallas as one of the youngest competition contestants and became one of the Quarter Finalists. James performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Irving Symphony Orchestra at the Irving Arts Center in 2019.
When James was admitted to the UNT College of Music in October 2021, he decided to withdraw from his high school and move to Denton, Texas, to pursue his piano studies with Dr. Pamela Mia Paul.
When he’s not busy practicing piano, James enjoys jogging, going to the gym, and composing music.
Kapustin: Piano Concerto No. 4
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Four Novelletten
Mahler: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
Ukranian born jazz pianist Nikolai Kapustin claimed "I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I'm not interested in improvisation – and what is a jazz musician without improvisation? All my improvisations are written, of course, and they became much better." The single-movement Fourth Piano Concerto is an undeniable thrill ride.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, sometimes referred to as the "African Mahler," was born in London, the son of an Englishwoman and a medical student from Sierra Leone. His 4 Novelletten have been called "romantic, lush, and colorful" with “touches of Brahms and the blues.”
The Adagietto by Gustav Mahler provided a sea of calm in the midst of the turbulent five-movement Fifth Symphony. It was the composer's expression of undying love for his wife Alma. The Adagietto's rise in popularity with general audiences coincided with its use as the major theme in the movie Death in Venice.