Join us for a great evening of music from the master composers of the turn of the 20th century, conducted by Andrea E. Brown. 

Program:

• Shostakovich Festive Overture in A major, Op. 96
• Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16 
• Andantino-Allegretto - Crystal Chao, 2012 Student Solo Competition Winner
• Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43

Bio for Crystal Chao:

Pianist Crystal Chao is a PhD candidate in robotics at Georgia Tech and a President's Fellowship recipient. She received her Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008, where she majored in computer science and minored in music and theater arts.

Originally from Edison, N.J., Crystal began formal piano study at age 5. At age 11, she was accepted into the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division, where she was a student of Jeffrey Cohen. At the Manhattan School of Music, she was a recipient of the Director's Scholarship and the Hansoree Scholarship, and she won Honorable Mentions in the Preparatory Division Concerto Competition in 1999 and 2001. She was a Children's Foundation for the Arts grant recipient from 1999-2004. Crystal performed at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 2003 as a winner of the Associated Music Teachers League Young Musicians Concert Auditions. She has also participated in the Texas Music Festival and Aria International Summer Academy through which she has been selected to perform in master classes for notable artists as Horacio Gutierrez, Barry Snyder, Lilian Kallir and Ursula Oppens. 

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was a recipient of the Emerson Fellowship for music and studied with Randall Hodgkinson of the New England Conservatory of Music faculty. She also worked closely with MIT faculty members David Deveau, Marcus Thompson and Evan Ziporyn. While at MIT she gave regular recitals as an Emerson Fellow and as an active member of the MIT Chamber Music Society, and she received multiple Ragnar and Margaret Naess Awards for excellence in solo and chamber music performance. 

Currently, Crystal is conducting her PhD studies with Dr. Andrea Thomaz of the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab. Her thesis work, titled "Timing Multimodal Turn-Taking for Human-Robot Cooperation," focuses on controlling a robot's gesture, speech and gaze to achieve appropriate social dynamics for successful interactions with humans. As part of the Georgia Tech Music Minor Program, she is continuing private piano study with Timothy Whitehead and is also the accompanist for the Georgia Tech Chorale.