Download in English | Download in Chinese Ruth Nye, who nurtured his talent at the Yehudi Menuhin School, brought him to the Royal Academy of Music where Chen also worked with Hamish Milne, winning no fewer than eight coveted awards, noticeably that for ‘Best Final Recital'. He was also awarded numerous scholarships and learned with artists such as Dmitri Bashkirov, John Lill, Charles Rosen, Nikolai Demidenko and Krystian Zimerman. His highly successful concerto début in 1998 with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra playing Rachmaninov's Paganini Variations led to collaboration with conductors Maximiliano Valdes, Lan Shui, Sir Neville Marriner, Lord Menuhin, Pierre-Andre Valade and several orchestras including the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Warsaw Sinfonia and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, he has made appearances in British venues such as Bridgewater Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room and the Wigmore Hall as well as travelled to Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, China, the USA and most of Europe. In Kuala Lumpur, his performance at the Petronas Towers of Beethoven's first Piano Concerto with Sir Neville Marriner was particularly well received. Chen's commercial recordings include the acclaimed ‘Live at the Wigmore Hall' recording and a solo CD of works by Haydn, Liszt, Schubert and Stravinsky, both for Jaques Samuel Recordings. Chen also recorded for the ‘Cello Classics' label with cellist Leonid Gorokhov, for Illuminate Records of Piazzolla's piano trio music and broadcast on Classic FM. He looks forward to two forthcoming commercial CD releases, an all-Prokofiev solo piano disc for SOMM Recordings, and a piano trio recording for Toccata Classics. Recent highlights include Bobby Chen's performances of Rachmaninov's concerti with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra under Matthias Bamert and at the Midland Centre of the Arts in the USA, solo recitals at Fazioli Hall in Italy, Worcester Three Choirs Festival and Marlborough College Summer School, participating in the Complete Beethoven Sonatas Cycle as part of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts's 70th Anniversary Celebration in Singapore, chamber music performances at London Chamber Music Festival, Musica Nova Contemporary Music Festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Lidköping Music Festival in Sweden, broadcasts and interviews for Radio Television Hong Kong and Pianoforte Chicago (USA), and celebrating Malaysia's 50th Anniversary as a sovereign nation with a world premiere performance of a piano concerto with London Sinfonietta at Cadogan Hall in London. Forthcoming appearances include solo and chamber recitals organized with the help of Southern Highlands International Piano Competition in Australia, the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore and Music for Wexford in Ireland. He also makes a welcome return to London's Wigmore Hall, for the third time as a solo artist, and is greatly looking forward to giving world premiere performances at the Guildford International Music Festival and in Ireland. As well as his busy solo career, Bobby is also a keen chamber musician. He will tour with the Syrius Piano Trio and with sculptor Pia de Richemont in the coming months. A keen exponent of contemporary music, Bobby is working with Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Tazul Tajuddin, Stephen Goss and Grant Foster. |
Acclaimed by the Guardian in London and the Straits Times in Singapore, and described by International Piano Magazine as: “...an armour-clad player of complete technique, a thinking musician, a natural Romantic. Young bloods come no better”, Bobby Chen burst on the scene in 1996 with a sensational season of concerts, which included a British tour with Lord Menuhin in a performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto and a recital at the Royal Festival Hall as part of the South Bank Prokofiev Festival.