Performer Biography

Korean pianist YounJung Cha has been praised for her playing as “personal and heartfelt ” (Paul Schenly). Cha has performed numerous concerts in the United States and South Korea to critical acclaim. Ms. Cha maintains an active performing schedule, appearing in Chicago, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, California, Missouri, Minnesota, New York, Virginia, and Washington D.C in the United States, as well as Busan and Seoul in South Korea. Ms. Cha performed for the New Music tours, visiting schools including the University of Cincinnati, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri–Kansas City, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. She recently has been invited to perform in the Dame Myra Hess Afternoon Concert Series at the Chicago Cultural Center with Yun-Ting Lee, violinist from The Cleveland Orchestra.

In addition to her wide range of performing repertoire from Baroque to contemporary music, Cha specializes in works of German composers, especially those of Brahms and Eduard Marxsen (composition and piano teacher of Brahms). She is working on publishing her first solo CD on selected piano works by Eduard Marxsen and will be the first pianist to have recorded both sets of Marxsen’s piano music, Op. 4 Six Etudes for the Left Hand and 100 Variations on a Folk Song.

Ms. Cha completed her master’s degree in Piano Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music and completed her doctoral degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Iowa. She has worked at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, and at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. She is currently teaching at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio.