Dr. Tiantian Liang

Dr. Tiantian Liang maintains a multifaceted career as a pianist, organist, harpsichordist, and teacher. Her mission is to share her love for music through performing and teaching. A versatile keyboardist, Liang performs a diverse selection of repertoire spanning from the late renaissance through modern-day works. Born into a musical family in Chengdu, China, she displayed a palpable connection to the piano as a child. After beginning piano lessons at the age of five, Liang continued studying at the Preparatory School of Sichuan Conservatory of Music before coming to the United States.

Liang’s international piano solo performances include the US and Europe. Recently, she performed at the Borromeo Festival in Switzerland. Additionally, Liang was a featured performer in the Gala Concert of the Dublin International Piano Festival in 2016. Her future repertoire projects will explore diverse composers including Fanny Mendelssohn, Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Xu Zhen-min, and Gao Ping. Liang is also a performer of rare chamber music; she recently performed the three organ and piano duets of Marcel Dupré

Liang’s current research interests cover both performance and pedagogy, which include the subject of death in Beethoven’s piano sonatas, the process of memorizing music, and the piano works of Chinese composers. As an active member of MTNA, Liang has participated in numerous piano pedagogy conferences presenting a poster on “Yvonne Loriod’s Influence on the Piano Works of Olivier Messiaen” at the MTNA Collegiate Chapters Symposium at Ball State University, the Ohio Music Teachers Association Southwest conference, and 2020 MTNA National Visual Conference. She most recently performed a lecture-recital for the Southern College Music Society Conference in 2022 titled “Introducing Chinese Piano Music to the Advanced Student: Pedogeological Uses for Tan Dun’s ‘Eight Memories in Watercolor.’”

Liang currently serves on the faculty at Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN. She earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance with cognates in piano pedagogy and harpsichord performance at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Additionally, she holds a Performer Diploma at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, a Master of Music in Piano Performance from Rice University, and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Concordia College. Her teachers include Michael Chertock, Vicki King, Jean Louis Haguenauer, Edmund Battersby, Richard Ratliff, Brian Connelly, and Jay Hershberger.