MOYE CHEN

“…He is not just another top-ranking pianist. He is a musician of deep sensitivity and soul, with technical facility to burn. He needs to be noticed and he deserves the greatest success.”

                                       - Cyrus Meher-Homji, Founder and Producer of Eloquence Classics

“Moye is a dynamic and evocative pianist both on and off the stage and we look forward to working with him to bring his unique artistry to the global stage.”

- George Ash, President of Universal Music Asia-Pacific

“An absolutely true artist! Soulful, intelligent, and creative."

- Sa Chen, Concert Pianist

“When I first heard Moye's audition tape for the Sydney International Piano Competition, the hair on the back of my neck prickled as he launched into Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata ...”

- Piers Lane, Concert Pianist

Praised by The Cincinnati Enquirer as playing with ‘bravura and artistry’ for his performance of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and by Frequent Business Traveler as ‘majestic and lyrical’ for his recital at Carnegie Hall in 2015, Moye Chen has performed extensively as a concert pianist in Europe, Asia, America and Oceania.

Highlights of Moye’s past seasons include appearances in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Benaroya Hall, Krannert Centre for the Performing Arts, the Sydney Opera House, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall, Petit Palau Hall, Joaquín Rodrigo Music Auditorium, the City Hall of Brussels, the National Centre for the Performing Arts, the Beijing Concert Hall, the Forbidden City Concert Hall, as well as several performing arts venues in Shanghai. 

He has played at numerous festivals around the world and has collaborated with many distinguished conductors and performers such as Sir Andrew Davis, Valery Gergiev, William Eddins, Benjamin Northey, Nicholas Milton, Jia Lü, Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici, Hamish McKeich, Stefan Milenkovich, Tasmin Little, Kathron Sturrock and Hung-Kuan Chen.

Moye has won prestigious awards at numerous international competitions, including the 11th Sydney International Piano Competition (Australia), the 58th Cincinnati World Piano Competition (USA), the 16th International Piano Competition ‘Spanish Composers’ (Spain), the 8th International Iowa Piano Competition (USA), the 1st Berliner International Music Competition (Germany), and the 5th World Piano Teachers Association (WPTA) International Piano Competition (Serbia), among others. He was awarded the 2017 Center for Musical Excellence (CME) International Performing Arts Grant. A versatile artist, he has been awarded the prestigious Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship and Feltsman Piano Foundation Scholarship. Some of his live recordings have been collected on the album Encore! on the ABC Classics label.

A native of Beijing, China, Moye earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he currently holds the positions of Associate Professor of Piano. His Artist Diploma and Doctorate of Musical Arts have been conferred by Oberlin Conservatory of Music and University of Illinois respectively. His principal teachers include Hung-Kuan Chen, Angela Cheng, Robert Hamilton, William Heiles and Xiaosheng Zhao. Other teachers and mentors include Tema Blackstone, Alvin Chow and Cheung-Yu Mo.

Moye Chen is a Kawai Artist. He is signed exclusively to Deutsche Grammophon / Universal Music Australia as a recording artist.

FOUR WORLDS

Four Worlds is an album that will appeal to the widest possible market. Who can fail to be seduced by Gershwin’s “Love Walked In” in the smoochy transcription by Percy Grainger. Or his Londonderry Air (which worked its way into one of the century’s biggest songs You Raise Me Up!). Vladimir Horowitz, one of the greatest virtuosos of all time, makes an appearance as both composer and transcriber.

Rachmaninov is one of Moye Chen’s many specialities and he presents a range of pieces from this composer’s output – the gorgeous Melodie, the cheeky transcription of the ‘Menuet’ from Bizet’s L’Arlesienne, and the all-engulfing Second Sonata.

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

Released Date: May 2018

SKU: 4817037

MORE INFORMATION

"In a program sprawling across 77 minutes, Chen saves the best for the last, a breathtaking performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonata No 2, a concerto for solo piano in all but name. It is by turns lyrical and brutish as Chen’s huge muscular fingers toss off those torrents of notes effortlessly. Could the composer-pianist himself have achieved any better?"

- Vincent Plush, The Australian

“...the young Chinese pianist Moye Chen, as part of a thrillingly inventive programme, plays Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata with colossal authority and not a little fantasy.”

- James Jolly, Gramophone

"Chen is wonderfully inside Grainger’s crunchy textures and hearty sentimentality, and his reading of Colonial Song is particularly gorgeous. He’s also in command of Grainger’s wild ragtime fantasy In Dahomey, where not only does the “feel” come to him naturally, but the considerable pianistic challenges hold no terrors for him either."

- Phillip Sametz, Limelight Magazine

"The opening notes of Rachmaninov's Polka de VR alert listeners to his relaxed charm and style, while Grainger' Ramble on Love (based on the love duet from Der Rosenkavalier) is a gem, ditto two morcea of Horowitz'."

- Barney Zwartz, The Age

"The range of emotions he (Moye Chen) conveys on his debut recording, from exquisite poetry to sheer thrill, will get your heart pumping. And if it doesn’t, you probably need to see a specialist!”

- Cyrus Meher-Homji, Universal Music Group

"(In this album) You will find out from his renditions that the highest musicianship and finest naturality are two principal goals that he has always been pursuing."

- Keju Zhang, Xinmin Evening News

Tracklisting:

1. RACHMANINOV: Polka de V.R.

2. GRAINGER: Colonial Song

3. HOROWITZ: Danse excentrique (Moment exotique)

4. HOROWITZ: Valse in F minor

5. GRAINGER: Love Walked In (George Gershwin)

6. GRAINGER: Ramble on Love (after the Love Duet from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier)

7. RACHMANINOV: Morceaux de fantasie, Op. 3: No. 3: Mélodie in E major

8. RACHMANINOV: Morceaux de fantasie, Op. 3: No. 5: Sérénade in B flat minor

9. RACHMANINOV: Morceaux de salon, Op. 10: No. 5: Humoresque in G major

10. RACHMANINOV: Menuet from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1 (Bizet)

11. GRAINGER: Irish Tune from County Derry (Londonderry Air)

12. GRAINGER: In Dahomey (Cakewalk Smasher)

13. transc. HOROWITZ: The Stars and Stripes Forever (John Philip Sousa)

14-16. RACHMANINOV: Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 36 (1913 & 1931 versions, ed. Horowitz)