Biography
Clarinetist Cecilia Kang enjoys a multi-faceted international career as a concert clarinetist, educator and an adjudicator. She currently serves as the associate professor of clarinet at Louisiana State University and artist faculty at Aria International Summer Academy and California Orchestra Institute. A prize winner of the Canadian Music Competition and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Standard Life Competition, she has received numerous awards and grants from the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Washington DC, New Music USA, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Metropolitan Arts Council, the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects, the Kingsway Foundation, and the Hendrickson Foundation.
In addition to her active international career as a performer, her passionate and innovative teaching style has also been showcased at many renowned musical institutions around the world, including at the University of Toronto (Canada), the University of Michigan (USA), Boston University (USA), Peabody Institute (USA), San Francisco Conservatory of Music (USA), Indiana University (USA), Beijing Central Conservatory of Music (China), Shanghai Conservatory of Music (China), the University of Melbourne (Australia), Sai Wan Ho Civic Center (Hong Kong), National Taiwan University of Arts (Taiwan), Yonsei University (South Korea), Thailand International Clarinet Academy (Thailand), Conservatorio di Musica "G.Verdi" di Milano (Italy), and Minas Gerais Philharmonic Academy (Brazil).
Her notable engagements include lectures, recitals and clarinet pedagogy workshops at various conferences hosted by Music Educators Association across the United States, the College Music Society, the Midwest Clinic, and the ClarinetFest. As an adjudicator, she has served on judging panels for the International Clarinet Association, the Music Teachers National Association, the College Music Society, the Interflow Band Festival of Hong Kong, the Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition, and the International Young Artist Competition of France. Her works have been featured on the Nineteenth-Century Music Review Journal, the GIA Publications and the Clarinet Journal.
Cecilia Kang earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, a Master of Music degree from the University of Southern California, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Toronto. Her professional development residencies took place at Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music (Austria) and Internationales Darmstadt (Germany). Her main clarinet mentors include Yehuda Gilad, Daniel Gilbert, Joseph Orlowski, Joaquin Valdepenas, Avrahm Galper, and Zeng-Ming Liao
In 2020, she founded the Silver Linings Initiative and hosted a series of virtual panel discussions among clarinetists, music educators and arts leaders around the world exchanging ideas and examining the paradigm shifts and lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Her current research interests reside in the realms of artivism, interdisciplinary collaborations and music perception and cognition.
She is a proud Vandoren and Buffet Crampon Performing Artist and Clinician. For more information, please visit https://kangcecilia.com/