中華表演藝術基金會 Chinese Performing Arts Foundation

Ya-Fei Chuang 莊雅斐, pianist

Acclaimed by critics in the United States and abroad for performances of stunning virtuosity, refinement and communicative power, Ya-Fei Chuang’s playing has been named the equal of Vladimir Ashkenazy, Garrick Ohlsson, and Idil Biret (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), and Alfred Brendel has praised her as “a pianist of extraordinary ability, intelligence, sensitivity and command . . . approaching the height of her powers.” Commenting on her newly released (April 2019) Chopin/Liszt recording, he also stated "If you want to listen to Chopin and Liszt with different ears, Ya-Fei Chuang's ecstatic performances cannot leave you cold, and her pianism is staggering"; and Remy Franck wrote "... masterful ...thrilling ...phenomenal" (Journal about Classical Music, Luxembourg).

Ya-Fei Chuang’s international appearances include the symphony orchestras of Berlin, Boston, Birmingham, Israel, Malaysia, and Tokyo; and performances at the Berlin Philharmonie and Schauspielhaus, the Gewandhaus (Leipzig), Queen Elisabeth Hall (London), Boston Symphony Hall, National Concert Hall (Taipei), Suntory Hall (Tokyo) and, more recently, performances in New York, San Francisco, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and at the International Grieg Piano Competition in Norway (where she also served as member of the competition jury several times), and the Grand Piano Series in Naples, Florida.

Festival appearances in recent seasons include Verbier, Ruhr Piano Festival (where she regularly performs), Oregon Bach, Mozartwoche (Salzburg), the Taiwan Maestro Piano Festival (where she also gave a two-week masterclass), the Mozart Festival (Romania), Beethoven Festival (Warsaw), Beethoven Festival (Krakow), European Music Festival (Stuttgart), Bach Festival (Leipzig), Taipei International Music Festival, and the festivals of Schleswig-Holstein, Gilmore, Ravinia, Rockport, Sarasota, and Tanglewood.

Performances on fortepiano include Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Philharmonia Baroque, and Concerto Köln.

Ya-Fei Chuang has recorded for ECM, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, and New York Philomusica Records, and the Ruhr Festival has released several of her live recordings. Fanfare Magazine hailed her “delicacy and fluidity of touch” for her Mendelssohn G Minor Concerto live recording, and her recording of Hindemith chamber works was awarded a special prize by the International Record Review. Upcoming CD releases include recordings of the complete piano solo works by Ravel for Le Palais des Dégustateurs, to be released worldwide on Harmonia Mundi.

Ya-Fei Chuang’s mastery of the most challenging solo and chamber repertoire is complemented by her commitment to contemporary music. She has given the world premieres of works by John Harbison, Stanley Walden, Thomas Oboe Lee, and Yehudi Wyner.

She is on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and on the New England Conservatory Preparatory & Continuing Ed, where she teaches a piano performance seminar. She gives master classes throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, and since 2008 an annual two-week master class at the International Summer Academy at Mozarteum in Salzburg.

Prizewinner in the Cologne Inter¬na¬tional Piano Competition at age 18, Ya-Fei Chuang first performed on television in her native Taiwan at the age of eight and gave her first public recital at age nine. She won first prize at the nationally televised ‘Genius vs. Genius’ Music Competition at age ten and first prize at the National Competition (Taiwan) at age eleven. The following year she received unprecedented fellowships and scholarships from several prestigious foundations in Germany and Taiwan that enabled her to pursue pre-college, under¬graduate, and masters-level studies at the Freiburg Conservatory (Musik¬hochschule) with Rosa Sabater and Robert Levin, completing the six-year course of study in four. During this time she was awarded numerous prizes, including the Basel-Colmar-Freiburg Arts Prize, the Mendelssohn Prize (Freiburg) and Parke-Davis Prize (Germany). She subsequently concluded her German studies with Pavel Gililov, receiving a concert diploma (final degree) at the Cologne Conservatory, and earned a graduate diploma at the New England Conservatory in Boston, USA, with Russell Sherman. Her master class teachers included Leon Fleischer, Gil Kalish, Elisabeth Leonskaja, John O'Conor, Meneham Pressler, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel. Her mentor Alfred Brendel has been working with her regularly in recent years.