Our Faculty

Background

Hong Zhang is a tenured Instructor of Chinese and an associate faculty member of Music. While she has performed at numerous international venues, Zhang is also an award-winning Chinese language and culture teacher. Her teaching curriculum includes all levels of Chinese and the groundbreaking course Singing Chinese. Her students have won awards at many international competitions. Zhang has given teacher training workshops on “Teaching Chinese through Song” in the U.S., China, Canada and Singapore. Altogether, she has conducted more than 50 workshops and trained thousands of Chinese language teachers.

As a Chinese culture and music ambassador, Zhang has also performed extensively. In addition to singing solos at over 60 concerts, she has given lecture-recitals called “Chinese Ethnic Groups and Their Songs” at the United Nations and more than 30 universities. For a sample, please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqXvOi9MaN8 .

Zhang has also co-authored Chinese through Song (Global Scholarly Publications, 1998; SUNY Press, 2010. 2nd edition, 2014) and Cultural Chinese: Readings in Art, Literature, and History (Georgetown University Press, 2012).

Education

• MM, Binghamton University
• BM, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research Interests

• Language and Music
• Language Pedagogy
• Vocal Pedagogy
• Chinese Music and Culture

Teaching Interests

• Cultural Chinese
• Business Chinese
• Compositional Chinese
• Chinese through Song
• Li Bai & Du Fu
• Confucius' Analects

Awards

• SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching; 2018
• Outstanding Contribution in Chinese Language Education; Chinese Language Teachers Association; 2012
• Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching; 2009

More Info

Selected Publications:

• Chinese through Song (SUNY Press)
• Cultural Chinese: Readings in Art, Literature, and History (Georgetown University Press)