Abigail Ramsey
A toddler and her father wander the halls of a children’s hospital, singing. They follow the music to an atrium, where a woman at a piano plays their favorite songs. The little girl doesn’t know the pianist has performed at the most renowned music halls in the world. She only knows she doesn’t want to leave — and for the next two hours, she doesn’t.
The woman at the piano is Grace Fong, D.M.A., professor and director of piano studies at the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music at Chapman University. A U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts who has performed for the President of the United States and on stages across four continents, Fong has volunteered at community spaces since childhood. Today, between performances and a full teaching schedule, she brings that same artistry to hospitals, cultural centers, and libraries across Orange County — and she’s bringing her students with her.
The audience isn’t always who you’d expect. Doctors, nurses, and staff often stop to listen, unwind or request a song — and the conversations that follow, Fong says, are among her most treasured moments.
“In a concert hall, people come to the music. In community spaces, the music goes to them, meeting people where they are,” Fong said. “As simple as it sounds, music really does bring people together.”
Luke Morand, Seacrest Studios Media Programs Coordinator at Rady Children’s Health, has watched even the smallest interactions between patients and Fong leave a lasting impression.
“There is so much power in live music, and Grace has an incredible ability to create meaningful connections through her performances,” Morand said. “It’s wonderful to see patients light up when they recognize a song. Her performances bring moments of joy, comfort, and normalcy in what can often be a stressful environment.”
Notes of Connection
Fong grew up with a mother who was a pianist and teacher, and a father who was a physician. But it was her grandmother who taught her the most enduring lesson. Raised in rural Taiwan, her grandmother was adopted by a neighbor who, despite having very little, had enough heart to raise her. That spirit of giving stayed with Fong, who got her start volunteering to play piano in hospitals as a child. The music, she discovered, could change a room.
“I saw that the music touched people in such a profound way,” Fong said. “You could see it in their bodies. Their faces would soften.”
Fong kept volunteering throughout her childhood and well into college, where she double-majored in piano performance and healthcare administration. She visited schools, special education and mental health programs, libraries, and cultural centers. And she dreamed of putting concert halls inside hospitals.
The concert world had other plans. Fong built a career performing in more than 40 concert halls worldwide, at times practicing nearly nine hours a day when preparing programs of more than 300,000 notes. Each performance demands precision, artistry, and an intimate understanding of the composer’s emotional world.
Even as her concert career grew, Fong never stopped making time for this calling. Amid international performances and a full teaching schedule, she returns to these visits, where she hopes her music helps families navigating illness to slow down and breathe. There are no programs to follow, no critics in the seats. After Beethoven and Chopin, she’ll slip into themes from films like Frozen or the Super Mario Bros., inviting listeners to sing along or simply laugh together.
“I’m not changing what I do — just where I bring it and how it connects,” Fong said.
And she has found a way to realize her childhood dream. Through the Ryan Seacrest Foundation’s Seacrest Studios — broadcast media centers built inside pediatric hospitals to bring entertainment and connection to young patients — her students are now taking the stage, too. Piano performance major J.R. Easley ’26 recently performed a 50-minute program at Rady Children’s Health, broadcast live to 340 patient rooms, two weeks after performing at Carnegie Hall.
“When I play music, it takes me to my happy place. I’m not here physically, I’m just present in the music,” Easley said. “A couple of years ago I would just go and play the notes, and it would be sort of mechanical. With the help of Dr. Fong, I’ve been able to channel a different kind of energy, and it makes the music a lot different.”
Music Meant to Be Shared
Fong’s students expect long hours at the keyboard. They’re also pushed to research composers and their lives to understand the emotional world behind every piece they play. Knowing the notes, she tells them, is the easy part. She hopes to instill in her students that world-class artistry and human connection can go hand in hand.
Fong frequently collaborates with dancers, filmmakers, actors, designers, and chefs. This past year, she connected with Julianne O’Brien Pedersen, associate dean of academic affairs and professor of dance, to bring dance students to Rady Children’s Health, opening the doors for Chapman student dancers to perform there. She hopes to expand interdisciplinary collaborations within these spaces.
“These performances help students find their own voice and understand what it means to be both an artist and a human in an increasingly digital world,” Fong said.
