Welcoming Two New Pre-College Studio Faculty

From left to right: TzuTi Daniel Chang, Dan Shao, Yiwen Shen, Konstantinos Valianatos

The Tianjin Juilliard School announces two new appointments to its Pre-College studio faculty roster for the 2023-2024 academic year. Violinist TzuTi Daniel Chang and pianist Dan Shao join the studio faculty roster. In addition, two current faculty members will step into new teaching roles. Yiwen Shen will join the Pre-College composition faculty, and Konstantinos Valianatos will join the Pre-College piano faculty.

TzuTi Daniel Chang

TzuTi Daniel Chang is a prize winner of the Taiwan National Music competition, the Seventh Annual Academy of Taiwan Strings Violin Competition, and several other local competitions. He first appeared as a soloist at the age of 13, playing Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major with orchestras in Kaohsiung. He also performed concertos by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Glazunov with various orchestras.

Chang started playing the violin at the age of five, and his main teacher was Ray-Chou Chang, the concertmaster of the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. Chang has participated in several music festivals, including the Summit Music Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, Great Mountain Music Festival, the Banff Center’s string master classes, Singapore International Violin Festival, and the Hida-Takayama Music Festival. He has worked with world-renowned musicians such as Aaron Rosand, Ilya Kaler, Krzysztof Wegrzyn, Victor Danchenko, Alexander Trostiansky, and Takashi Shimizu.

A graduate of The Juilliard School and the Yale School of Music, Chang is strongly influenced by violinists Lara Lev and Hyo Kang. He has also worked with Stephen Clapp, Joseph Lin, and Daniel Phillips. He has performed in David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall as a member of The Juilliard Orchestra. While studying at Yale, he served as concertmaster of the Yale Philharmonia under the baton of Maestro Peter Oundjian. He was also a teaching artist, working with undergraduate violin students at Yale.

Chang has given master classes and concerts in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tianjin, and many other cities in China. In 2020, he founded the Trout Quartet, and the quartet has performed in major concert halls in China, such as Tianjin Grand Theater, Beijing National Library Arts Center, Jiangsu Grand Theater, Shenzhen Concert Hall, Shenzhen Poly Theater, Shenzhen Jingshan Theater, Xinghai Concert Hall, Wuxi Grand Theater, and Qingdao Grand Theater. Chang served as a violin instructor and Artist in Residence at Vanke Meisha Arts Academy from 2019. In 2022, he joined The Yehudi Menuhin School Qingdao as a violin teacher. 

Dan Shao

Dan Shao started piano lessons at the age of 3, studied under Professor Sheng Jian-yi at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at 6 years old and was the youngest piano soloist in the 3rd Spring of the Shanghai Festival. She continued her studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under professor Guo Zhi-hong, Li Qi-fang and Zhu Gong-yi. She graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor’s degree, and became a teacher at the Central Conservatory.

In 1985, Shao was a professor and the head of the piano department of the affiliated high school to the Shanghai Conservatory. Since then, many of her students have won piano competitions both in China and internationally. In 1992, she was invited by the Goethe Foundation as a Paul Badura-Skoda scholar to visit and perform in Vienna, and to study under the world-renowned pianist. Shao has given recitals and concerts in Austria, Switzerland, as well as various cities throughout China. She performed on CCTV and Shanghai TV, published papers on piano performance artistry, and made CD recordings.

Currently, she is a professor of Central Conservatory of Music, and a visiting Professor of Xi’an Conservatory of Music.