Karen Hsiao Savage is Professor of Collaborative Piano and Coordinator of Chamber Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory. She holds a doctoral and two master’s degrees (in solo and collaborative piano) from Juilliard, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Victoria.
Praised as a "tour de force" (Santa Barbara News-Press), for "breathtaking beauty and pure lyricism" (Le Soleil, Vancouver), and for “fearless performance” (The Straits Times, Singapore), Karen has performed internationally in such venues as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, Merkin Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Shanghai Grand Theatre, and the Perlman Music Program, with broadcasts on internationally syndicated NPR programs and on Vietnamese and Chinese national television. Recent projects include performances with members of the Kansas City Symphony, New York Philharmonic, LA Phil, and Chiara Quartet, and an album of works by female composers with oboist Celeste Johnson.
Working closely and frequently with living composers, 88SQUARED, Karen’s piano duo with husband Jeffrey, has received critical praise from American Record Guide and Fanfare for recording premieres of two-piano works by Lowell Liebermann (Albany Records) and Daniel Ott (Navonna/PARMA Records) in albums led and produced by the composer. The duo won the Ellis Duo Piano Competition, the Abild Prize in American Music, and second prize and special mention at Concours Grieg International Competition in Oslo. This fall, the duo will premiere a new multimedia version of Rome Prize winner Paul Rudy’s A Time of Ma’at with choreography by Guggenheim Fellow Gary Abbott, highlighting the experience of mass incarceration.
Karen leads UMKC Conservatory’s Kauffman Healing and Harmony program, sending student fellows to perform chamber music in hospitals, hospice, and senior homes throughout Kansas City. She created the Conservatory’s new Collaborative Piano MM degree program and has been honored with the 2024 UMKC Provost’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring and the 2021 Friends of the Conservatory Faculty Excellence Award.
Dr. Savage is in demand as a presenter, adjudicator, and guest teacher, and her students are active in the field as performers and teachers. She previously served on the faculty of Washington State University. Her performances, master classes, and presentations include those at Indiana University, Eastman School of Music, Musi-Quest National Piano Festival (India), Ho Chi Minh Conservatory (Vietnam), and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory (Singapore). Her primary teachers were Jonathan Feldman, Veda Kaplinsky, Margo Garrett, Sam Sanders, Robin Wood, Winifred Wood, and Edward Parker; additional studies were with Anne Epperson and Robert McDonald.
