Ching-Yun "Charlotte" Hu is a Taiwanese-born American classical pianist. Born in Taipei, she made her concerto debut at the age of 13 with the Capella Cracoviensis Chamber Orchestra in Poland. At 14 she moved to the United States to study in the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School. She later earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Juilliard, studying with Herbert Stessin and Oxana Yablonskaya, and continued her training with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music and with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the University of Music, Drama and Media Hanover in Germany.
Hu's early career was marked by a series of competition successes and important debuts. In 1998 she won the silver medal at the Taipei International Piano Competition as its youngest competitor. After attending the Aspen Music Festival, she won the Aspen Concerto Competition and performed Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Aspen Concert Orchestra. She also won the Philadelphia Orchestra Greenfield Competition, which led to her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Grieg's Piano Concerto. In 1999 she made her European debut at the Chopin International Music Festival in Duszniki-Zdroj, Poland, and in 2000 she gave a recital in the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Her recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center came in 2007, followed by a return engagement in 2009.
In 2008 Hu won the top prize at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv and also received the Audience Favorite Prize. During the competition she performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in the semifinal and final rounds, and shortly afterward she substituted for Helene Grimaud in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the same orchestra. In the following seasons she appeared at Wigmore Hall in London, the Klavier-Ruhr Festival, the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Tel Aviv Opera House, Salle Cortot in Paris, Rubinstein Hall in Lodz, and the Great Hall of the Liszt Academy in Budapest. She also appeared as soloist with the Israel Symphony Orchestra, the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.
Following the Rubinstein competition, Hu won the 2009 Concert Artists Guild International Competition in New York and signed with CAG Artist Management. She went on to perform widely in prominent concert series in the United States and abroad, including a debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, an orchestral debut in Sao Paulo, appearances at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and the Gasteig in Munich, and a ten-concert tour of South Africa. Throughout her career she has been supported by the Puffin Foundation in the United States, the Chi-Mei Foundation in Taiwan, the Solti Foundation in Belgium, the Hattori Foundation in London, and educational and cultural committees in Taiwan.
Hu has also been active as a recording artist. Her debut album, Chopin, released in April 2011 on the Taiwanese label ArchiMusic, was nominated for Golden Melody Awards for Best Performance and Best Classical Album of the Year, and won the award for Best Classical Album. Later recordings on Naxos/CAG Records and BMOP/sound with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project received strong critical recognition, and her Rachmaninoff album on Centaur/Naxos earned a five-star review from Pianist magazine in the United Kingdom. Her discography includes Chopin (2011), Works by Granados, Mozart and Ravel (2013), Jeremy Gill: Before the Wresting Tides (2017), Rachmaninoff (2019), and Liszt Metamorphosis (2024).
A committed advocate for music education, Hu raised 27,000 United States dollars for youth education charities through a Hope Charity Concert streamed on Facebook in June 2020. She is also the founder of the Yun-Hsiang Foundation and the Yun-Hsiang International Music Festival, established in 2011 in Taipei to promote Taiwanese musicians, music, and young artists. The festival's first edition was held in November 2012 and included masterclasses, a concerto competition, and concerts at the National Theater and Concert Hall in Taipei.
In 2013 Hu founded the Philadelphia Young Pianists' Academy, which by 2024 had become a significant institution for young pianists, presenting more than 150 concerts in person and online and over 1,000 hours of masterclasses by internationally known musicians. A Steinway Artist, she also serves as artist in residence and on the piano faculty at Temple University in Philadelphia, while maintaining an active schedule of masterclasses and artist residencies at universities and music festivals around the world.
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