Helen Sung's Live Wire Project

Helen Sungs Live Wire Project featuring Helen Sung on piano, John Ellis on saxophone, Vicente Archer on bass, Kush Abadey on drums, and Wendel Patrick as DJ has been brought to life through support from Chamber Music Americas New Jazz Works program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Sung is an award-winning jazz pianist and composer who received a Guggenheim Fellowship. After experiencing jazz during her studies at the University of Texas at Austin, she left classical training to graduate in the first class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance (now the Herbie Hancock Institute) and win the Kennedy Centers Mary Lou Williams Piano Competition. Beyond her own ensemble and projects, she has collaborated with artists including Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band. She currently teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Columbia University, where she also served as the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute to study connections between jazz and neuroscience. A Steinway Artist, Sung combines crisp swing with elegant creativity; her rhythms draw from blues foundations while keeping audiences engaged through fresh musical ideas often inspired by her classical background.