Biography
Lisa Sung is an award-winning jazz pianist, composer, and educator whose work bridges cultures through the language of jazz. In 2022, she received the prestigious John Stites Jazz Award for artistic development, which has supported her ongoing exploration of world musical traditions within jazz contexts.
Lisa has performed and recorded with renowned jazz artists including Terell Stafford, Rodney Whitaker, Ron McClure, Stafford Hunter, Rob Smith, Diego Rivera, and Dmitri Metheny. Her debut album, Half Moon, reimagines traditional Korean children’s songs through the harmonic and improvisational language of jazz. Her second album, Dari Sabang, continues this global conversation by interpreting Indonesian folk melodies in a jazz idiom.
She currently serves as an adjunct professor at ÃÛÌÒapp and Aquinas College, where she directs the ÃÛÌÒapp Jazz Band and co-directs the Gospel Choir, mentoring the next generation of artists and worship leaders.
In Fall 2024, Lisa began her Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Jazz Performance and Contemporary Composition at the University of Michigan, where she was awarded the prestigious Rackham Merit Fellowship for academic excellence and artistic vision. In January 2025, she received the Presidential Graduate Fellowship in recognition of her groundbreaking musical collaboration with a Korean Pansori singer.
Lisa holds a Bachelor of Music from Temple University, where she studied with Terell Stafford and Thomas Lawton, and a Master of Music from New York University, where her mentors included Ron McClure and Don Friedman.
With the support of the John Stites Jazz Award, Lisa has toured internationally across Indonesia, South Korea, and Vietnam, sharing her cross-cultural jazz work on national stages and broadcasts. Her Lisa Sung Trio was featured on CNN Indonesia, and her quartet’s performance of Vietnamese children’s songs was showcased at the First International Jazz Festival in Nha Trang, airing nationally. She will continue her international work with upcoming tours in the Philippines, and Brazil.