John Chen

John Chen is one of New Zealand’s finest young concert pianists. He is an Auckland Grammar School Old Boy and twice winner of the Minister’s Plate.
In 2004, at the age of 18, John Chen became the youngest-ever winner of the prestigious Sydney International Piano Competition. He was also awarded special prizes for best performance of works by Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Chamber Music, and the 19th/20th Century Concerto. This followed his first-prize win in the third Lev Vlassenko Australasian Piano Competition in Brisbane in 2003, where he also swept all the special prizes.

In the five years since, John has become one of the very few whose career has matched its auspicious competition beginnings. He has a formidable profile in Australia where he has worked with the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, West Australia, Tasmania and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, The Queensland Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria, and where limelight magazine placed him last year in their top 50 power players to watch in the arts – in the company of luminaries such as Vladimir Ashkenazy and Cate Blanchett.

In New Zealand, John has appeared with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Vector Wellington and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestras. Eminent conductors with whom he has worked include the late János Fürst, Olari Elts, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Oleg Caetani, Werner Andreas Albert, Vladimir Verbitsky, Marc Taddei, James Judd, James MacMillan, John Storgårds, Christoph Poppen, Johannes Fritzsch, William Southgate, Rodolfo Fischer, Edwin Outwater, Yasuo Shinozaki, Nicholas Milton and Ken Young. This year sees his debut with the (Singapore) Orchestra of the Music Makers as well as work with conductors Marco Zuccarini and Paul Daniel.

As a chamber musician, John has performed with the Los Angeles, Australian, and Australia Pro Arte Chamber Orchestras, collaborating with Jeffrey Kahane, Christoph Poppen and Ben Northey. His Saguaro Piano Trio (with violinist Luanne Homzy and cellist Peter Myers) won Bronze at the 2008 Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition, the most prestigious chamber competition in the United States, and second place at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition – one of the world’s top 3 chamber music competitions. In 2008 he completed an extensive Australian tour with Paganini Prize winner violinist Feng Ning under the auspicies of Musica Viva – presenting the same programme twice in New Zealand. 2009 plans include an exciting New Zealand collaboration of Piano Quintets with the T’ang Quartet (Singapore), and an extensive Australasian solo recital tour. In addition, he’ll make a nationwide tour of New Zealand with the NZSO National Youth Orchestra, return to the Melbourne, Tasmania and the West Australian Symphony Orchestras, and participate in the Geza Anda and Leeds International competitions.

Chen began his piano studies at the age of three. He studied with prominent New Zealand pedagogue Rae de Lisle for 11 years, gaining a Master of Music degree from the University of Auckland by the time he was 18 under her tutelage. He won his first piano competition at the age of nine, and over the subsequent years was successful in a number of national competitions. He made his official orchestral debut aged 15, performing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Since then he has performed in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, USA and Germany (at the prestigious Ruhr Festival). In 2006 he completed a tour of 31 Australian cities, which holds the record for the longest Australian tour ever undertaken by a classical musician. The same year he toured 14 New Zealand cities with Chamber Music New Zealand. In 2007 he made another extensive Chamber Music New Zealand and was re-invited to many Australian and New Zealand orchestras. Last year John returned to Germany for a series of recitals and to participate in the Bochum Festival with the Jena Orchestra.

Chen has a particular passion for 20th century French music. He has recorded the complete solo piano works of Henri Dutilleux (Naxos 8.557823) and a selection of Debussy and Ravel, just released in 2008 (ABC Classics ISBN / Catalogue Number: 4766834).

John is also deeply committed to New Zealand music, giving the world premieres of works by New Zealand composers Jenny McLeod, Ross Harris, and Claire Cowan (a work he commissioned himself). He has also given the world premiere of the second piano concerto of Australian composer Roger Smalley.
In 2008, John was honoured as the University of Auckland's Young Alumnus of the Year. He is currently based in the US where between recitals he is working towards his doctorate in piano performance at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.