Jiang is a Juilliard graduate and holds an artist diploma from the Peabody Institute.
She has played the piano since the age of 4.
Her performances have featured on BBC News, ABC Australia, and RNZ Concert, among others, and she has won numerous prizes at prestigious competitions, including the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition.
Exploring new places and playing contemporary and classic piano works, Jiang is "really excited" for her first solo tour and her first time to Oamaru.
"I’ve been told that it’s really beautiful [Oamaru]. I love exploring, that’s a fun part.
"Chamber Music [New Zealand] is one of the great musical institutions ... and having grown up here, I know what a big deal it is to go on tour for them and I’m really excited to reach this milestone, but also to visit lots of great communities around New Zealand, like Oamaru.
"Growing up in Auckland, I haven’t been down south all that much, so it’s going to be really cool," she said.
For her debut national tour as a soloist, she has built a programme around the theme of ‘home’ — both to her personally and as a broader concept.
Jiang was born in China and immigrated with her family to New Zealand when she was 4. She has spent most of her life in Auckland and lived in the United States for the past 10 years, where she graduated from The Juilliard School of Music in New York.
This results in a unique blend of New Zealand music, American compositions reminiscent of her time at Juilliard, and works reflecting her family’s Chinese heritage.
"It’s really important to me to embrace and reflect all the different places I have lived and that have had a big impact on my life.
"So the programme kind of represents that. It’s built around two major classic works, Prokofiev and Chopin, and then I highlight different pieces from Chinese New Zealander composer Gao Ping, from classic American composers George Walker and Gershwin, and New Zealand composers as well," she said.
Jiang will also play a piece by well-known New Zealand composer Kenneth Young.
As a soloist, Jiang has performed with the Royal Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Queensland Symphony, and Juilliard Chamber Orchestras, and has given recitals in Australasia, South Korea, Great Britain, and North America.
Jiang said her solo programme will be diverse.
She is a "big fan" of the classics and will play Chopin’s Second Sonata and Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata, "which are both really big, kinda classic piano pieces".
Jiang will join a long line of renowned soloists who have played The Bechstein Salon Grand Model V 1898 piano, housed at the Oamaru Opera House since 2019 and said it will be "exciting" to get to know a new piano.
"I’ve played on Bechsteins and they’re definitely a great piano. I’m just looking forward to discovering the character and I’m sure I’ll get some time with the piano."
