Helen Sung Big Band Oracles Vinyl Release

Helen Sung is a Houston-born pianist and composer whose work bridges jazz and classical traditions. A graduate of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, she has received the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Claudette Sorel Award. Sung has performed with Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Cécile McLorin Salvant.

Her latest album, Oracles (2026), is her debut big band project and a deeply personal tribute to the jazz masters who mentored her at the Monk Institute, including Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Jimmy Heath, Wayne Shorter, Barry Harris, Kenny Barron, Herbie Hancock, and Sir Roland Hanna. Featuring original compositions and arrangements inspired by these artists, the album reflects Sung’s evolution from classically trained pianist to composer and bandleader, and celebrates jazz as a tradition rooted in freedom, collaboration, and individual expression. Now based in New York, Sung is an Associate Professor at Columbia University and Visiting Faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.