Internationally renowned pianist and educator Chiu-Ling Lin of West Windsor will perform at Steinway Society’s February musicale at Jacobs Music, 2540 Brunswick Pike, Lawrenceville, on Sunday, February 17, at 3 p.m. The performance will include pieces by Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Chopin, Astor Piazolla, and Kapustin’s Preludes in Jazz Style. A social hour with a buffet of refreshments and conversation with the artist will follow the performance. Tickets are $18.
Lin has performed in Peru, Argentina, and Brazil as an artistic ambassador for the United States Information Agency. Her appearances in New York, Boston, Chicago, England, Canada, and throughout the Far East have featured her unique mix of music by Chinese and Western composers. Her virtuosity is showcased in the CD “Portraits of China.”
The oldest of three children, Lin was born in Taiwan and raised in Singapore. “I always appreciated music,” she told the News in a 2011 interview. “We lived in a duplex and a piano teacher lived in the other part. I saw students going in happy and coming out happier.” She requested piano lessons when she was only four years old but her parents asked her to wait six months.
“My parents always knew the quality of education and paved my educational path with quality teachers,” she says. “It was a financial sacrifice for them and I am forever grateful. “ She came to the United States to go to college when she was 17 and stayed.
Lin received her bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Indiana University. She made her Carnegie Weill Recital Hall debut as the winner of the East and West Young Artist Auditions.
She is now a retired college professor from Case Western Reserve University. “With my sister in New Jersey and my brother in Connecticut, I knew I wanted to live on the East Coast,” says Lin, who moved to West Windsor in 2005.
“I’ve been teaching for more than 35 years and consider my students as my children,” she says. “I call myself a piano player, not a classical musician.” Lin is the immediate past president of the New Jersey Music Teachers Association, and the representative of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music for New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
She has also soloed with 14 orchestras, including the Des Moines Symphony, where she is its principal keyboard player. She has also performed with the Atlanta Symphony, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the Singapore Symphony. Lin has also performed with Bravura Philharmonic, Manalapan Symphony Orchestra, and at Westminster Choir College. Her concerts often feature Hispanic, Chinese, and left-handed repertoire.
Lin taught her sister, Chiu-Tze Lin, how to play the piano when she was very young. They played duo piano for a long time. “It’s a privilege when you have siblings, you can read each other’s minds,” she says. “We have a long history and there’s an unspoken vibe.”
Lin donated a grand piano to the new Plainsboro Library. “It’s a wonderful facility with great acoustics,” she says. “This area is so rich in culture and I’m very happy to call it home.”
Sunday Musicale Series, Steinway Musical Society, Jacobs Music, 2540 Brunswick Pike, Lawrenceville. Sunday, February 17, 3 p.m. Pianist Chiu-Ling Lin in concert of works by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and others. A West Windsor resident, she has soloed with 14 orchestras, including the Des Moines Symphony. Refreshments follow the performance. $18. 609-434-0222 or www.princetonol.com/groups/steinway.
