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I-Hsuan Tsai, piano
In addition to touring as part of Yang and Olivia duo, Olivia (a.k.a. Dr. I-Hsuan Tsai) has appeared as soloist with QingDao Concert Hall Orchestra, Southern Illinois Symphony Orchestra, and Highland Park Strings. She was the staff pianist of world renowned Aspen Music Festival and Musicorda Music Festival in US, as well as artist faculty/performer of Oficina Music Festival, Curitiba Music Festival in Brazil and Algarve Music Festival in Portugal. In 2018, she founded Yang and Olivia Foundation and organized a cultural exchange concert where she performed as part of the diverse and dynamic chamber group Momento Virtuosi, celebrating Qingdao’s Sound of Phoenix Grand Theater grand opening.
In addition to performances, She currently serves as chair of Theory and Piano and associate professor at VanderCook College of Music. Her book "Schubert's Piano Trios" was invited to publish by Scholar's Press in Germany, and was published in 2014. She is appointed in 2017 as guest professor at Lanzhou Northwestern University. She also performs at many colleges and universities, including Roosevelt University and Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, Coastal Carolina College in NC and Nebraska University in Kearney.
Dr. Tsai came to the United States in 1993 not only as a pianist, but also a bassoonist. She received her Bachelor of Music degree with high scholastic achievement award in 1996, and Master of Music in both piano and bassoon at Indiana University in Bloomington as Emma E. Claus Scholarship recipient in 1999. She went on to earn her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano at University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music (UC, CCM) as a recipient of graduate scholarship, where she also served as faculty at CCM’s preparatory department. During her student years, she was the winner of Buckeye Piano Competition, Graves Piano Competition in the US, and Young Artist Series in Taiwan.