Helen Sung
Pianist/composer
Wardrobe by Vivienne Tam, Photo by Kat Villacorta
About
Helen Sung is an acclaimed jazz pianist and composer and a Guggenheim Fellow. A native of Houston, Texas, and alumna of its High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, she diverged from her classical upbringing after encountering jazz during undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Helen went on to be part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance (renamed the Herbie Hancock Institute in 2019) and win the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition.
In addition to her band and album projects, Helen has performed and toured with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band. She is currently visiting faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an Associate Professor at Columbia University, where she also was the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at its Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute exploring analogies between jazz and neuroscience.
Other activities of note include her large ensemble project “Oracles” (which will be featured on her next release); a digital streaming series “Re-Orientation: Asian American Artists Out Loud” (made possible by a Chamber Music America Digital Residency grant); and partnering with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, the Zuckerman Institute’s Public Programs Department, and Arts & Minds to present programs about the neuroscience behind making/hearing music to engage those living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
A Steinway artist, “Sung plays with crisp swing and elegant invention, her rhythms drawing from the music’s deepest blues roots – and setting listeners’ heads bobbing – while she explores her own fresh ideas, often inspired from her classical training.” (New York Times)
REFLECTIONS
Jazz Community
As a classical-turned-jazz artist, one of the things I have come to love the most about this American art form is its generous, communal heart: this is music made together, played together, and enjoyed together. Tenor legend Jimmy Heath told me (during my studies at the then Monk Institute) the jazz bandstand exemplified true democracy, where the musicians each had a role to play, everyone got a chance to shine and have their say, but in the end they create something greater together than they could on their own. After the prolonged isolation of the pandemic, getting to play (and hang!) with beloved colleagues and tour again has been a joy and revelation: as Maestro Heath taught me, we need one another. May we take this message out into the jazz venues of our nation, and the world. Details about upcoming shows here.
For the latest stories and photos, visit me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
