Nianyi Huang

Nianyi Huang is a contracted artist with the leading Chinese brand HAILUN Piano, is an active performer and recitalist. He is a Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) candidate in Piano Performance at the Manhattan School of Music, where he also serves as a teaching assistant in the college keyboard division and in the precollege division. He currently studies under renowned pedagogue Jeffrey Cohen and is his sole doctoral assistant.

In recent years, Huang has actively performed across China, the United States, and Europe. He has given over ten solo recitals, masterclasses, and chamber concerts in cities such as Shenzhen, Hefei, Ningbo, Quanzhou, Nanchang, Handan, New York, and Weimar. In 2025, he was awarded Third Prize at the Weatherford College International Piano Competition in Texas. In 2024, he was invited to perform at the Franz Liszt Hochschule für Musik Weimar as part of the university’s summer festival. He was also a full-scholarship recipient at the New Paltz International Piano Festival in 2022 and awarded a major scholarship to attend the Puerto Piano Festival. That same year, he won First Prize and Best Romantic Performance at the Gershwin International Piano Competition.

Huang was admitted to the Middle School affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 2010, where he studied with Prof. Sun Yun. He then earned both his Bachelor of Music (BM ’20) and Master of Music (MM ’22) degrees from Manhattan School of Music under the guidance of Prof. Phillip Kawin. Currently, he is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) degree at MSM, under the tutelage of Prof. Jeffrey Cohen. From 2019 to 2023, he was a five-time recipient of the Harold and Helene Schonberg Piano Scholarship in New York. Earlier achievements include the Grand Prize at the 2018 China Music Talent Award International Competition, Gold Prize at the Shanghai Spring Piano Competition, and a featured performance at Steinway Hall as part of the Classical Bridge Festival. In 2019, he gave a solo recital in Lucca, Italy, after winning Top Prize and Etude Award at the local Academy of Music competition.

Alongside solo performance, Huang is an avid chamber musician. In November 2023, he presented his DMA chamber recital at Greenfield Hall, performing Franck’s Piano Quintet and Suk’s Piano Quartet with his colleagues and violinist Peter Winograd, first violinist of the American String Quartet. He has extensive experience collaborating with violinists, his repertoire includes the complete violin sonatas of Beethoven and Brahms, as well as violin sonatas by Ravel, Debussy, Prokofiev, Szymanowski, Strauss, Franck, and Schnittke.

In teaching, Huang brings a decade of experience. He currently teaches piano lesson and chamber music at MSM precollege. For the private teaching, he has mentored students who gained admission to top institutions, including the Shanghai Conservatory, Wuhan Conservatory, Xi’an Conservatory. His students have also received awards at competitions in China and abroad. He also contributed substantially to the demonstration recordings for Prof. Sun Yun’s edition of Czerny’s Op. 740 Studies.