MA Top 30 Professional: Donna Weng Friedman

Pianist, Curator, Educator
Director/Producer, Never Fade Away

Donna Weng Friedman’s creativity can’t be contained by 88 keys. When she’s not teaching at the Mannes School of Music or Princeton University, her alma mater, the New York–based pianist can be found crafting WQXR programs (Her/Music: Her/ Story, on women composers, and Heritage and Harmony, a recital series featuring Asian artists and composers), producing a video series for the National Women’s History Museum (also called Heritage and Harmony, interviewing pathbreaking women of color across several fields), or even designing a mobile app (The Music Bee Club, introducing children to classical music through engaging animations).

Weng Friedman’s most recent endeavor is her most personal yet. In 2023, she directed Never Fade Away, a short documentary that artfully recounts her father’s immigration story, using Chopin’s Waltz in C-sharp Minor as a motif—a piece associated with her father. Chun Wai Chan, who made history in 2022 as New York City Ballet’s first Chinese principal dancer, dances in the film’s choreographic interludes. 

That project, as well as both Heritage and Harmony series, grew out of one of the worst moments of Weng Friedman’s life. In March 2020, she was the victim of an anti-Asian hate crime while walking her dog in Central Park. Her attacker accused her of “causing the coronavirus.”

“I went back home, and I didn’t leave my apartment for seven months,” she says. “I decided that maybe people didn’t know too much about what it’s like to be Asian in this country.” 

Never Fade Away has gone on to win numerous accolades at international film festivals. An excerpt of it was shown in Times Square, and the documentary is now archived in perpetuity at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

“I was receiving such incredible feedback from people who said, ‘That’s my father’s story,’ ‘that’s my grandfather’s story,’” Weng Friedman says.

Not one to rest on her laurels, she is already onto the next thing; in 2025-26, she will unveil the latest installment in the Heritage and Harmony series, Brava Maestra!, spotlighting young female conductors
of color in partnership with the International Alliance for Women. She’s also working on a chamber series with erhu player Karen Han and pipa specialist Gao Hong.