BIO
Helen Sung is an accomplished jazz musician/composer and a native Houstonian. She was born in the Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center, and her very first stints with music began at a young age when she first played with a “red toy piano.” Her family later purchased an upright Yamaha piano, which was delivered to their Houston home, and she subsequently began her classical violin and piano journey “around the same time in kindergarten.” As her classical training progressed, she amassed experiences with various teachers, attended the famous Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Artists in Houston, and eventually attended UT Austin (her “backup–backup” school, as she describes in the interview) to study classical piano performance. It was at UT Austin where she eventually experienced a subsequent “Jazz epiphany,” which spearheaded her Jazz pursuits. After college, she would go on to become part of the Thelonious Monk Institute’s inaugural class, and since her “Jazz epiphany,” she has produced many works and has amassed various accomplishments. Recently, she produced “Re-Orientation: Asian American Artists Out Loud” for a Chamber Music America digital residency. Helen Sung is also a 2021 Guggenheim fellow. In this interview, Helen Sung describes her musical experiences (starting from her early years to her current career), touches upon her upbringing, talks about some of her recent works/works in progress, and provides us with some of her perspectives on current issues.