Biography

Jesse Hu is an award-winning soloist, chamber musician, and educator who has performed across North America, Europe, and Asia. His performances have taken him to audiences at the East China Normal University, Ferman University, the Gijón Music Festival in Spain, National Concert Hall in Taiwan, and the Orford Music Academy in Canada. Mr. Hu is a prizewinner and finalist in numerous regional and international competitions, including the Fenix Music Award in Poland, the International France Music Competition, the Atlanta Music Club, and the Music Teachers National Association competitions in Colorado and Denver. He made his orchestral debut with the University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra in 2022 and has appeared at major festivals including Gijón, the International Keyboard Institute, Orford, and SongFest. A dedicated chamber musician, Mr. Hu performs as a pianist with the Hodgson Piano Trio, which was a semifinalist at the 2025 Plowman Chamber Music Competition.

A native of Taiwan, Mr. Hu began piano studies at age four with Feng-Chien Hsu and Su-Chen Guo, and won numerous prizes at the National Student Music Competition in Taiwan (2007, 2009, 2011). He earned his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Denver under the tutelage of Stephanie Shih-Yu Cheng, where he received the Sarah Manion Award and the Outstanding Graduation Recital Award upon graduation. He holds a Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied solo piano with Benjamin Pasternack and chamber music with Ellen Mack and Maria Hahn. He is currently a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate at the University of Georgia, studying with Liza Stepanova, where he serves as a Teaching Assistant of Applied Piano and Class Piano and as Piano Area Teaching Assistant. He has also had the privilege of working with distinguished artists including Jonathan Biss, Sara Davis Buechner, Massimiliano Ferrati, Claire Huangci, Martin Katz, Julian Martin, Murray Perahia, Jerome Rose, Victor Rosenbaum, Ann Schein, Logan Skelton, Itamar Zorman, Wu Han, and the Borromeo and Ying String Quartets.

As an educator and scholar, Mr. Hu serves on the faculty of Gwinnett Technical College, where he teaches Music Appreciation, and as piano faculty at Atlanta Music Academy and Musical Keys. Recently, his dissertation research on nineteenth-century chamber arrangements of Mozart’s piano concertos was selected for presentation at the 2026 Southern College Music Society Conference in Birmingham, Alabama.