Shirley Yoo, Distinguished Piano Guest Artist

Heralded by the Washington Post as a pianist with “extraordinary sensitivity and technical skill,”
Shirley Yoo has performed internationally at venues such as the Kennedy Center Concert Hall,
Washington DC; Tata Theatre, Mumbai; Arts Center, Seoul; Penderecki Festival, Banff; Societa
Filarmonica, Trento; and Steinway Hall, London. Her numerous performances in the United
States include radio broadcasts of solo and chamber recitals on WQED and WQLN. Recent
recitals include a mid-Atlantic tour to celebrate Rachmaninoff’s sesquicentennial with both piano
suites, as well as performances in Washington DC, Vancouver BC, the Cayman Islands, and
Seoul, Korea.

Recognized as a top prizewinner for her solo performance in such competitions as the
Pennsylvania Federation of Music Clubs, the National Society of Arts and Letters, and the
Kosciuszko Foundation’s National Chopin Competition, Yoo is also passionate about chamber
music. She was a founding member of the Annapolis Chamber Players, an ensemble of winds,
strings and two pianos. Additionally, she was a founding core member of League of the Unsound
Sound (LotUS), a chamber group dedicated to performing contemporary and experimental
music. In their first season, the Washington Post reviewed their concert at Catholic University
and called her playing “a spectacular performance […] that really stole the show.” She has also
performed with members of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra,
Alarm Will Sound, and SO Percussion. New World Records released “Circadian Rhythms,” on
which she performed works by Mathew Rosenblum.

Dedicated to nurturing the next generation of musicians, she has been teaching in the university
and conservatory setting for over two decades. She has judged for various regional chapters of
MTNA, as well as for the Chautauqua Music Festival Piano competitions, the Hulbert
International Piano Competition, the Chicago International Music Competition, Valencia
International Performance Academy, and the International Maestro Piano Competition (Taiwan).
Guided by her primary teachers Raymond Hanson, Ann Koscielny, Noretta Conci-Leech, and
Ellen Mack, she also credits the profound influence of other renowned artists she has closely
worked with, including Marc Durand, Leon Fleisher, Marek Jablonski, and Seymour Lipkin, as
well as members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Shanghai, and Tokyo String Quartets.
Yoo studied at Johns Hopkins University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa, received a

Master of Music degree on a fellowship at the University of Maryland, and completed post-
graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. After earning her Doctor of Musical

Arts degree at Peabody Institute, for several years she taught at the Conservatory and at Temple
Preparatory and while working at Curtis Institute as staff accompanist. She then held a
professorship in piano and was Artist-in-Residence of the D’Angelo Piano Trio at Mercyhurst
University. She has since returned to teach piano and chamber music at Peabody Conservatory
and resides in Baltimore. The recipient of a Presser Award, Yoo was also awarded a Maryland
State Arts Council Grant.