Visiting Guest Artist

Noted for her “sensitive and imaginative” (New York Concert Review) playing, Korean-born pianist Sookkyung Cho has been captivating worldwide audiences with her personal, thoughtful expressionist style. She has appeared in venues such as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Chicago Cultural Center, Sarasota Opera House, Baltimore Museum of Art, Beaux concerts de la releve in Quebec, Château de Fontainebleau in France, and Zijingang Theater at Zhejiang University and Xi’an Conservatory in China, among others, and was heard on Chicago’s WFMT. A founding member of the New York-based Almava Trio, she has also been featured in major music festivals including Yellow Barn, Norfolk, and Sarasota, and was a Performing Associate at Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine.

As a sought-after pedagogue, Dr. Cho has been invited to adjudicate competitions at major institutions and organizations including Osaka International Music Competition (Chinese regional round), National Federation of Music Clubs (Young Artist Piano Award), University of Michigan, New England Conservatory Preparatory School, and Walnut Hill School for the Arts. She also taught as a piano instructor for the LINKS Signature Arts Program at The Juilliard School in New York and was on piano and chamber music faculty at NEC Preparatory in Boston. A performer-scholar, she was selected to present a lecture-recital at College Music Society for its biennial International Conference in Korea and has taught music theory at Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Dr. Cho holds a Master of Music degree from Peabody and Bachelor of Music from Juilliard, where she was honored with the John Erskine Graduation Prize. She also received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Juilliard as C. V. Starr Doctoral Fellow. Her doctoral dissertation, “Schubert’s Sonata in B-Major, D. 575, Re-imagined” became an inspiration for her debut CD, “Schubert’s 1817 Sonatas,” released on Centaur in April 2021. Her teachers include Boris Slutsky, Julian Martin, Matti Raekallio, and Jonathan Bass. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Piano, Artist- Performer, at Grand Valley State University in Michigan and is the Artistic Director of Grand Valley Piano Chamber Series. In summer, she also teaches at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and ESME Camp. (www.sookkyungcho.com; www.gvpcs.org)