Biography

Pianist Sa Chen’s upcoming debuts and performances include an appearance at the Prague Spring Festival, a twenty venue recital tour of Germany, and a tour of Japan with the China Philharmonic Orchestra and Fabio Luisi. She has performed with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, the City of Birmingham Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, London Mozart Players, Warsaw Philharmonic, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Singapore Symphony, among others. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with these performances.

Her concerts and recitals have taken her to Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center in the US; Berlin Philharmonie; London’s Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, and Purcell Room; Tonhalle Zurich; Sala Verdi in Milan; and Suntory Hall, Tokyo. Ms. Chen’s festival appearances include the Duszniki Chopin Festival, Ruhr Piano Festival, La Roque d’Antheron International Piano Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Louisiana Museum Festival, Lockenhaus Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, and Le Musiques Festival in Switzerland. She was also selected to perform in Tokyo’s 100 Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century series. She has collaborated with some of the world’s most renowned artists and chamber musicians, most recently with Gidon Kremer and Natalie Gutman.

Ms. Chen has earned some of the world’s most prestigious awards and honors. In 1994 she won the first prize at the China International Piano Competition. She won the fourth prize in the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1996 as the youngest contestant in the competition. She was also a prize winner at the 14th International Chopin Piano Competition in October 2000, when she claimed the Best Polonaise Performance Award as well as the fourth prize overall. Her success in the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition made her the only pianist in the history to be a prize winner in all the top three international piano competitions. She was awarded the Chopin Art Passport from the Polish Government in recognition of her achievement in Chopin’s music during Chopin's birth bicentennial in 2010.

Ms. Chen is a Steinway Artist. Her albums for the PentaTone label include a disc of solo works by Rachmaninoff and Mussorgsky. She has also recorded albums of Chopin’s piano concertos, and Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 and Grieg's Piano Concerto, both with Lawrence Foster and the Gulbenkian Orchestra, on PentaTone.

(April 2015)