About
Praised by the Winnipeg Free Press as a "dynamo pianist" with an "intense focus, virtuosic technique" and "poetic sensibility,” Dr. Su Jeon Higuera is a Toronto-based pianist and educator. The winner of the 2007 Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, she completed a 16-city recital tour of Canada, appeared as a soloist with the Montreal Chamber Orchestra, North York Concert Orchestra, Aspen Concert Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, York Symphony Orchestra, Banff Festival Orchestra, Arlington Philharmonic in Massachusetts, Hart House Orchestra of the University of Toronto, and the Gijón Symphony Orchestra in Spain.
In recital and chamber appearances, Dr. Jeon Higuera has performed in notable venues such as Lincoln Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, Alice Tully Hall and Miller Theatre in New York, Harvard and Columbia Universities, as well as Cambridge University in England. Su was the youngest pianist to be invited to the 2001 Tanglewood Music Center, where her performances were broadcast on the WQXR New York radio station. In Canada, she has performed at the Banff, Orford, and Stratford festivals, Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Canadian Opera Company, University of Calgary, Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society in Ontario, and Outremont Art Gallery in Quebec.
Su Jeon Higuera is a prize-winner of numerous competitions, including the Shreveport Symphony Nena Wideman Piano Competition, the International Stepping Stone Competition in Canada, the Arlington Philharmonic Society Young Artist Competition, the German Youth Competition, as well as the Nakamichi Concerto Competition in Aspen, Colorado. Dr. Jeon Higuera is also a recipient of numerous scholarships and prizes such as the Van Cliburn Scholarship at Juilliard, Alma Cockburn Memorial Scholarship, Myrtle Meretsky Nefsky Scholarship, Cindy Calder Scholarship at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and the Dadatel Foundation prize for promising young leaders. In addition to her First Prize at the Eckhardt-Gramatté, she was awarded the City of Brandon Prize for best performance of the competition commissioned work.
Born in Korea and raised in Germany and Japan, Su received her early musical training at the Jugendmusikschule in Frankfurt as a pupil of Gudrun Rampini. She earned the International Baccalaureate Diploma before moving to New York to study at The Juilliard School, where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as a student of Julian Martin. She then attended The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and earned her Artist Diploma as a student of Marc Durand. In September 2010, Su completed her doctorate at l’Université de Montréal, working with Marc Durand and Maneli Pirzadeh. Dr. Jeon Higuera is the founder of the Joy Piano Studio in downtown Toronto, where she currently resides with her husband, Ricardo Higuera. In the summer she serves as a faculty artist at the Midsummer Sound Music Festival in Barrie, Ontario.
© 2017 SU JEON HIGUERA.