Helen Sung, piano

Sung plays with crisp swing and elegant invention, her rhythms drawing from the music’s deepest blues roots – and setting listeners’ heads bobbing – while she explores her own fresh ideas, often inspired from her classical training. – The New York Times

Helen Sung's Live Wire Project
In 2019, Helen Sung served as the first ever Jazz Artist-in-Residence at Columbia University’s prestigious Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. The residency sponsors musical artists for a period of engagement, inspiration and discovery at the Institute, reflecting its commitment to creating a dynamic and exciting environment for the exploration of the mind and brain, and its desire to foster a connection between music and sciences. Dialoguing with Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientists, learning about their research, and examining the arts as a celebration of our brains inspired her Live Wire project – a collection of music about bird song, the electric dance of neurons, and the wonders of our shared humanity. Helen Sung's Live Wire Project has been made possible with support from Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program funded through the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Pianist, composer, and a Guggenheim Fellow, Helen Sung was part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance (now the Herbie Hancock Institute). In addition to performing with her band at leading venues both stateside and abroad, she has worked with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band. Based in New York City, she currently serves on the faculties of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Columbia University, where she was the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at its Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute exploring intersections of jazz and neuroscience. 

A Steinway Artist, “Sung plays with crisp swing and elegant invention, her rhythms drawing from the music’s deepest blues roots – and setting listeners’ heads bobbing – while she explores her own fresh ideas, often inspired from her classical training.” (New York Times)

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