Photo credit: Tom McKenzie

Caroline Hong, professor of piano and Steinway Artist, holds degrees from Indiana University (DM), The Juilliard School (MM), and the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (BM). She has served on faculty for the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and Longwood University, Pianale International Piano Academy and Competition (Fulda, Germany), Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Piano Festival, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Summer Piano Academy, Vianden International Festival and School (Luxembourg), Piano at Peabody program, and will join Adamant Music Festival in Vermont this summer (2025).

Hailed for her “expressive and powerful playing,” “formidable technique,” as well as her “keen sense of lyricism and the classical style” (Richmond Times and Columbus Dispatch), Korean American pianist Caroline Hong continues to flourish in her career as an internationally active soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, master class teacher, lecturer, adjudicator and recording artist. Pulitzer Prize and Academy award-winning composer John Corigliano referred to her as “one of the greatest pianists I have ever heard” after a performance of his Etude Fantasy (1976). Critics wrote that it was “breathtaking” and “hard to imagine a better performance.” She has been favorably reviewed by American Record Guide, establishing herself as an interpreter of 20th and 21st century piano solo music.

She has been featured on numerous radio and television broadcasts worldwide. Caroline Hong made her debut at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall as a winner of the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition. She was selected to participate in the Van Cliburn International Audition; Concours Musical International de Montréal, Robert Casadesus, William Kapell, and UNISA International Piano Competitions; the Beethoven Foundation; and was Distinguished Performer of the Palm Beach International Piano Competition, Winner of the Society of American Musicians, and Bach Festival of Southern California, among others. As winner of the Chicago Civic Orchestra Soloist Competition, she performed in Symphony Center under the baton of Michael Morgan. She has also appeared as soloist with the Utah Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Indiana University Philharmonic, and West Texas Symphony, among others.

She has served as a jury member for Mid Atlantic Artists USArtists International, Aarhus International Piano Competition (Denmark), Los Angeles International Liszt Piano Competition, Bartok-Kabalevsky International Piano Competition (U.S.), Princeton Symphony Orchestra International Piano Competition, and International Young Artists Concerto (of which she is currently on the Jury Alumni Board). She has had the privilege of studying with luminaries Martin Canin, Jerome Lowenthal, Sergei Babayan, Dmitrii Paperno, Ann Schein, Karen Shaw, M. Deitzer and Fernando Laires; and as a selected masterclass participant for Claude Frank, John Browning, Leon Fleisher, Gyorgy Sebok, and Menahem Pressler, and Charles Rosen. Her first teacher, with whom she began study of piano at age two, was her mother, Mrs. Koon Ja Hong.

As a chamber musician, she has performed with many fine artist groups including the Vermeer String Quartet and the Dorian Wind Quintet, and toured extensively in the U.S. as a member of the piano-violin duo, Duo Viardot. She is the principal founding member and President of the American Liszt Society Ohio Chapter, and the Executive and Artistic Director of the Franz Liszt (U.S.) International Festival and Piano Competition, a board member of the American Liszt Society, and holds the Reinberger Foundation Chair at the Columbus Symphony. Dr. Hong has a strong teaching record reflected by successful students who have won competitions and positions in music academia.

• Dr. Ge Ding 2025 (Outstanding Graduate Achievement Award)
• Dr. Huiwen Jiang 2025
• Dr. Yu Qian 2024
• Dr. Dasom Kwon 2023 (Consecutive GTA Award Winner)
• Dr. Sunghwan Kim 2022 (DMA Concerto Competition Winner)
• Dr. Qianni Yang 2021
• Dr. Shitong Sigler 2021
• Dr. Yingzhou Hu 2020
• Dr. Liguang Zhou 2018
• Dr. Mihyun Lee 2014
• Dr. Jinyoung Kim 2014 (DMA Concerto Competition Winner)
• Dr. Jiyoung Park 2012
• Dr. Kyounglae Kang 2011 (DMA Concerto Competition Winner)
• Dr. Rina Shimizu Grow 2011
• Dr. Joseph Van Dyke 2011 (DMA Document Award)
• Dr. Hye Kyung Liz Yoon 2010
• Dr. Mei-Hsuan Huang 2010 (DMA Concerto Competition Winner)
• Dr. Lin-San Chou 2010
• Dr. Seonok Kim 2010 (DMA Concerto Competition Winner)
• Dr. Ryan Behan 2009 (DMA Concerto Competition Winner)
• Dr. Junghwa Lee 2008
• Dr. Yungjen Chen 2006 (DMA Concerto Competition Winner)
• Dr. Na Young Kim 2004 (DMA Document Award)
• Dr. Eun Kyoung Yang 2003 (DMA Concerto Competition Winner)
• Dr. Yung Ching Yang 2002
• Dr. Min Jung Cho 2002
• Dr. Hee Chung 2002
• Dr. Chllung Wel Chou 1998