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Biography
Born in Seoul, Korea, Hyunsoon Whang came to the United States in 1978 and joined the Music Department of Cameron University in January 1993. She has taught Private Piano, Class Piano, Accompanying, Music Literature and Music Appreciation. As a teacher, she is a student friendly professor who believes in a hands-on, caring, personalized learning environment. She also believes that a work ethic and discipline are among most important ingredients for success and asks each and every student to do his/her best. Her students are constantly challenged to push the limits, be open minded, and be creative. Her piano students have received scholarships to the Aspen Music School and New England Conservatory, and have won various competitions including the Oklahoma State level of the Music Teachers National Association Performance Competition for the High School and College level. She founded the annual Cameron University Piano Competition for High School Students which will be held in February 2007 for the fourteenth consecutive year. In 2004 she was inducted into the Cameron University Alumni Association’s Faculty Hall of Fame and was recently named the Louise D. McMahon Endowed Chair in Music.
As a pianist, Whang began her piano studies at the age of four and started playing public concerts at age twelve. Since then she has distinguished herself in numerous concerts across the United States, Europe, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Japan, and Korea. She is a versatile pianist who equally enjoys performing solo recitals, concertos with orchestra, chamber music concerts and as an accompanist. She has appeared as a soloist with such distinguished conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Joel Revzen and the late Nicholas Harsanyi. As a recitalist and a collaborator she has performed at Paul Hall in Lincoln Center, the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Se-Jong Cultural Center in Seoul. She has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Festival Master Classes, Canada’s Victoria Music Festival and the Taos School of Music. With her pianist husband Thomas Labé, she performed as a two piano duo in Germany and France to critical acclaim and recorded Alexis Weissenberg's surrealistic musical Nostalgie on the Arkadia label in Montpellier, France. Her teachers have included Gyorgy Sebok, Michele Bloch, Joseph Kalichstein, Clifton Matthews, Jung-joo Oh, Jung-kyu Kim and Soo-jung Shin, and she has studied the harpsichord with Maryse Carlin and chamber music with Michael Tree and Felix Galimir.
Whang studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the St. Louis Conservatory of Music, The Juilliard School, and holds a doctorate from Indiana University School of Music. She resides in Lawton overlooking Lake Lawtonka and Mt. Scott with her husband Thomas, their ten year old daughter Courtney, and an Australian Shepherd named Bella.
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