Kaili Ho, DMA

Dr. Kaili Ho made her professional solo debut at age 6 at Taiwan's National Concert Hall and has since captivated audiences across the United States, Asia, and Europe. She was sought out by the Taiwanese government to perform at the Taiwan Art Vision Festival and was invited as a Grand Prize winner of The Metropolitan International Piano Competition to perform at Weill Concert Hall of Carnegie Hall in New York.Professional Recognition
Dr. Ho has earned numerous accolades, including First Prize at the MTNA International State Piano Competition, First Prize at the Kawai International Piano Competition, Grand Prize at the 7th Taiwanese Chapter of the Peabody Institute Alumni Society, "Best Performance of Taiwanese Repertoire" at the Young Musician International Competition in Italy, and was selected among the top ten pianists for the Ninth Moscow International Frederick Chopin Competition for Young Pianists.Festival & Performance Highlights
Kaili has participated in prestigious festivals worldwide, including The Colburn Piano Festival, the Art of the Piano Festival at Cincinnati Conservatory, and the Engadin International Piano Festival in Switzerland. Other highlights include serving as the staff pianist at the Castleman String Quartet Program and the Interlochen Center for the Arts. She has performed with orchestras such as the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, the Colburn Academy Virtuosi Orchestra, and the Vidin State Philharmonic. She has also had the privilege of performing in masterclasses led by legendary musicians including Leon Fleisher, Jerome Lowenthal, and Boris Berman.Teaching
Dr. Ho is deeply committed to music education. She has been invited as a Guest Artist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, conducting masterclasses and chamber coaching. She also serves as a judge at the Federation of Music Clubs, Young Artist Audition for RPTA, and the Piano Star International Competition.Education
Raised in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Kaili studied at The Colburn School on a full scholarship before earning a Joint Honors Bachelor of Music from Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. She completed both her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts at Peabody, supported by full assistantships and received the Clara Ascherfeld Award.

Teaching

Teaching PhilosophyI like languages.My teaching philosophy is based on the idea that music is a language. Like spoken languages, music has its own set of vocabularies, grammar, and nuanced inflections, which are deeply rooted in historical and cultural contexts.Growing up, I first learned Chinese at home, then English at school. Later, I became immersed in the Japanese language and became good enough to hold conversations at lengths with native speakers. More recently, I have started learning Korean and French. These experiences have shaped not only how I communicate but also how I understand music, and more importantly, how I teach it.My teaching emphasizes clarity of musical intention by teaching music as a form of communication. I help students understand articulation, dynamics, and phrasing as musical equivalents of syntax and punctuation. For example, when my students fail to release between phrases, I pose a rhetorical question using a run-on sentence: “Is this considered good writing? I went to the store and I bought some eggs then I came home and made dinner and ate it then fell asleep?” To demonstrate how emphasis affects meaning, I use spoken inflection: “I ate an apple, I ate an apple, I ate an apple.” I believe these analogies allow my students to internalize musical structure intuitively, and not merely mechanically.Within my pedagogical approach that music is a language, technique becomes a means of communication rather than an end. I emphasize efficient physical coordination, healthy habits, and sound production as tools that enable expressive clarity. When working with both piano major and non-major students, I frame musicianship as a communicative, collaborative act - one that values attentive listening and physical coordination.I encourage my students to approach repertoire as a language influenced by its time, place, and purpose. Through this approach, students are invited to listen to the composer’s compositional language as it emerges through musical rhetoric, gesture, and structure. In doing so, they also inhabit perspectives beyond their own while developing an expressive voice that is both informed and personal.While musical communication takes place in the present moment, its notation are developed by history. I guide students to understand repertoire as a product of its historical context by examining composers’ biographies, performance practices, and aesthetic ideals of their time. Historical inquiry helps my students interpret music not as an isolated artifact, but as a living form of expression created by human experience. It enables them to understand not only how to play the music, but also why it was written the way it is.Just as there are many human languages, music, too, has many languages. I incorporate diverse repertoire alongside classical works, teaching students to approach unfamiliar musical dialects with curiosity, respect, and informed inquiry. Through score study, stylistic analysis, and historical context, my students learn that musical diversity is essential to musical and cultural acuity and awareness.As a performer, I am often told that my audiences feel moved by my performance. These responses affirm my belief that music communicates on deeply visceral levels. In performance and teaching alike, I strive to honor the composer’s intention while allowing space for personal experience and imagination. Teaching students how to access and communicate this expressive depth is the goal of my pedagogical approaches. All in all, my goal is to mentor students to become confident and thoughtful musicians who can speak music with imagination, purpose, and joy across a wide range of musical contexts to achieve high levels of musical proficiency.

Contact

For performance and collaboration inquiries, please fill out the form below to get in touch.