Jessica Leong Wai Yan began piano lessons at the age of seven and made her orchestral debut at fifteen with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue alongside the Kuala Lumpur Orchestra under Allan Burnham Airey. This was followed by concerto appearances featuring works by Mozart, Saint-Saëns, Rachmaninoff, and Brahms. Her early musical education took place in Hong Kong and Singapore, after which she pursued advanced studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she completed a Master of Music in Solo Performance (Distinction) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Accompaniment (Distinction) on full scholarship.

 

She has studied with John Thwaites, Graeme McNaught, Fali Pavri, and Aaron Shorr, and participated in masterclasses by Steven Osborne, Grigory Gruzman, Rolf Hind, and Adriano Ambrossini (prepared piano). As a student, she was awarded the Tony and Tania Webster Prize adjudicated by Murray McLachlan and won the conservatoire’s concerto competition. A highlight performance includes Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 with trumpeter Tom Poulson under conductor Nicholas Cleobury.

 

Jessica recently completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, studying under Dr. Andrew Willis and Dr. John Salmon. During her doctoral studies, she worked closely with the wind and saxophone studios, notably performing at the Singapore Saxophone Symposium and the U.S. Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium. Her dissertation focused on the solo piano works of Singaporean-Belgian composer Robert Casteels, with whom she also recorded selected works.

 

A regular attendee of the Moscow Conservatory’s summer programs, she has studied with Yuri Slesarev, Alexander Fomenko, Natalia Trull, and Irina Plotnikova. Jessica also studied conducting under Dr. Kim Jung Ho and maintains an active career as a collaborative pianist and educator across Asia and the United States. She has worked with artists such as Heidi Radtke, Chien-Kwan Lin, Gonzalo Esteban, Kyle Horch, Susan Fancher, Ao Kun, Nathan B. Bogert, David Nabb, and Joseph Lallo.