Biography

Pianist Dr. Heejung Kang was born in Seoul, Korea, and studied at the Seoul Music and Art High School for musically gifted teenagers. She graduated with the highest honors from the College of Music, Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul and later at the same university she earned her Master’s Degree in Piano, receiving the Ewha Graduate Research Fellowship Scholarship. Completing her doctoral dissertation on Rachmaninoff, she received her doctorate in Piano Performance at the College of Music at the University of North Texas in 2004.

As a performer, Dr. Kang has given solo and chamber recitals in the United States, Korea, South Africa, UK, and Israel. Internationally, she has participated in various concerts, radio broadcast performances, and recordings for the “Lost Composers’ Project,” which is dedicated to recovering the music of composers whose works were obscured as a result of the cultural policies of the Nazis and the Holocaust. In 2002, She made a recording of “Rediscovered Lieder and Piano Pieces by Kletzki, Oppel, and Schenker,” sponsored by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Jewish Federation, and College of Music at UNT. In December 2004, she performed music by Paul Kletzki, Reinhard Oppel, Arnold Mendelssohn and other composers live on Israel Radio. In November 2005, she performed solo piano music by Heinrich Schenker at the inaugural meeting of the Korean Society for Music Theory in Seoul and premiered Kletzki’s Sonata for Piano and Violin with Robert Davidovici on Korean National Radio (KBS FM1). 

Dr. Kang has recorded Reinhard Oppel’s solo piano music for Toccata Classics in England, which was released in 2011. Her second commercial CD on Anton Eberl’s violin sonatas for Toccata Classics was released in 2018 and was selected as a “Disc of the Month” by French magazine Classica. It also received attention from the prominent Korean newspaper, Chosun-ilbo, as an important world-premiere recording. The Fanfare reviewer wrote: “…Eberl, remember, was himself a celebrated piano virtuoso, and some of his writing for the instrument in these sonatas is quite brilliant. Kang handles it all with ease and stylish aplomb, always sensitive not to upstage the violin…” Both CDs are distributed by Naxos and available through Naxos Online as well. She is currently preparing Oppel’s piano music volume 2 for Toccata Classics as well as the second volume of Anton Eberl’s violin sonatas.

Dr. Kang is an avid chamber musician currently presenting interestingly-themed programs five times a year in Arlington/Fort Worth, TX. The Timeless Concert series, for which she is the pianist, includes not only classical music repertoire but also many piano trio transcriptions of well-known arias and art songs, which has made the series successful in attracting a large audience in the DFW area.

Currently a Senior Lecturer in Piano at the University of North Texas, she teaches courses in Piano Literature, Sight-reading, Accompanying, and Keyboard Harmony. From 2007 to the present, Dr. Kang has been serving as a judge for the Vernell Gregg Young Artist Competition (previously Lewisville Young Artist Competition). Additionally, she has served as a judge for the Dallas Symphonic Festival, Fort Worth Music Teachers Association Competition, MTNA Oregon state competition, and Collin County Music Competition (TX).