Biography
“Jocelyn Ho’s performance of my tango was superb, elegant -better than any of the commercial recordings of it currently available.”
—Chester Biscardi, 2004
“...a consistent performer with precise rhythmic execution and a surprisingly unrelenting physical technique given her slight frame. A committed contemporary music exponent, she relished the mechanised drive of Frederic Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (from North American Ballads)...”
—Eamonn Kelly, The Australian, September 15, 2008
Praised for her “imaginative and musical playing” and “colourful pianism”, Jocelyn Ho is an Australian pianist and composer. Last year, she won third prize in the 9th Australian National Piano Award. She was also the winner of the 2007 Kawai Award for solo piano, the winner of the 2007 Sydney Conservatorium Concerto Competition, and a recipient of the 2007 Australia Day Award by the National Council of Women NSW. She has won various piano competitions in Sydney and overseas, and has performed in the USA and in Europe, including Paris at the “Cortot School”, L’Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. She has also performed at the Sydney Opera House and the NSW Parliament House in Sydney.
As a composer, Jocelyn’s compositions have been performed in Sydney and overseas, including at the Sydney Opera House, the Kansas City Fringe Festival and in percussion recitals across the USA. In her compositions, she uses mathematics to create innovative musical forms. Her virtuosic piano work, Torus, was recently chosen to be included in the New Music Festival at Denison University in the USA, and was also featured in her graduate piano recital.
Jocelyn has been awarded numerous scholarships and awards throughout her university life. In her early university years, she received scholarships to undertake studies in Medicine and Science at UNSW after achieving a UAI score of 100.00, and receiving first in the State in HSC 3 Unit Music, the “All Rounders Award” and the “Australian Student’s Prize for Excellence”. Her undergraduate studies shifted to Pure Mathematics and Computer science. During this time, Jocelyn continued piano studies and won various regional competitions in Sydney.
As an undergraduate, Jocelyn received a scholarship to study for one year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There, she met the internationally renowned pianist, Ian Hobson and studied piano under his tutelage. In 2002, Jocelyn won the Clara Rolland competition for undergraduate pianists at the University of Illinois. Other teachers with whom she studied include Robert Weirich, Daniel Herscovitch, Julie Adam and Joy Fisher. She has also played in masterclasses and had lessons with Marilyn Nonken, Phillippe Entremont, Nelson Delle-Vigne, Marcella Crudeli, John Perry, Robert Roux, Rosella Clini and Jack Winerock.
An avid contemporary musician and supporter of new music, Jocelyn has performed works by George Crumb, Kaija Saariaho, Chester Biscardi, Carl Vine, Peter Sculthorpe, Anne Boyd, Paul Stanhope, Stuart Greenbaum and numerous others. She was a member of the contemporary ensemble, Musica Nova, and has played in the Piano on the Edge new music concert series at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the Modern Music Ensemble at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In the past, she has worked closely with student composers. As a composer-pianist, Jocelyn also performs her own works. She has studied composition with Chen Yi and Timothy Place in the US, and Anne Boyd in Sydney.
Jocelyn holds a Bachelor of Science at the University of New South Wales, a Diploma of Arts specializing in music at the University of Sydney, both with high distinction average, A. Mus A and L. Mus A in piano. She has also co-published a paper in the American Mathematical Monthly in February 2005. Currently, she is completing a Master of Music, studying piano with Gerard Willems at the Conservatorium of Sydney. Her research interests lie in mathematics in music, and her thesis topic is on Geometry in the compositional process. In her spare time, Jocelyn likes to study pure mathematics and theology.