Annie (Ziyao) Huang

Doctor of Musical Arts, Piano Performance​

Dr. Annie Ziyao Huang is a pianist, educator, and scholar who earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from Pennsylvania State University, supported by a full-tuition teaching assistantship. Her scholarly and artistic pursuits center on the expressive potential of 20th-century piano music, with a particular emphasis on narrative and emotional landscapes. This focus is reflected in her monograph and lecture recital, “Silent Narratives of War: The Emotional Landscape of Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 8.” She holds both a Master of Music degree and an Advanced Certificate in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from New York University, where she received the Distinguished Contribution and Leadership Award. She obtained her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory, where she was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honor society, and honored with the Piano Faculty Prize in Accompanying.

A versatile performer, Dr. Huang has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral keyboardist across the United States, Singapore, and China, with notable performances at prestigious events such as the Mostly Modern Festival, Puerto Rico International Piano Festival, Emerald Coast Chamber Music Festival, Montecito International Music Festival, “Beethoven the Contemporary” Festival, The Bach Institute, A-State “From Harlem, With Love” Concert, Penn State Mosaic Concert, NYU Tandon Piano Series, among many others. Her repertoire spans from Baroque masterworks to contemporary and electroacoustic compositions. In 2026, she was invited as a Performing Arts Experience Presenter at Arkansas State University, where she presented “Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2: Mind, Body, and Musical Tension on Stage,” an interdisciplinary presentation exploring the concerto’s psychological narrative, physical intensity, and emotional resonance with audiences.

In addition to her performance career, Dr. Huang is a passionate educator with extensive experience as a faculty member. She previously served on the Collaborative Piano Program faculty at Arkansas State University and has held positions as the Graduate Teaching Assistant at Penn State, Adjunct Piano Faculty at NYU, Secondary Piano Teacher at Oberlin, and music instructor at various academies in New York. Her research “Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17: A Voice Among Giants” was presented at the PMTA Conference, which examines the musical qualities of the piece and the socio-cultural challenges Clara faced as a woman in a male-dominated field. She is also actively involved in adjudicating pre-college musicians, having served as an adjudicator for the National Federation of Music Clubs Festival and the J. D. Kelly Piano Competition. Furthermore, Dr. Huang has served as the President of Penn State’s MTNA Collegiate Chapter. She is committed to developing a multifaceted career that integrates performance, pedagogy, scholarship, and community engagement.

​In her free time, Dr. Huang enjoys composing original works in diverse styles, believing that the act of composition deepens her understanding of the works of great composers and fuels her own artistic inspiration. Her typical compositions include two piano preludes, a three-voice fugue, and Epitome, a collection of three pieces designed as exercises for children.