Jenny Q Chai

An artist of singular vision, pianist Jenny Q Chai is widely renowned for

her ability to illuminate musical connections throughout the centuries.

With radical joie de vivre and razor-sharp intention, Chai creates layered

multimedia programs which explore and unite elements of science,

nature, fashion, and art. The New Yorker describes Chai as “a pianist

whose dazzling facility is matched by her deep musicality.”

Chai’s instinctive understanding of new music is complemented by a

deep grounding in core repertoire, with special affinity for Schumann,

Scarlatti, Beethoven, Bach, Debussy, and Ravel. She is a noted interpreter

of 20th-century masters Cage, Messiaen, and Ligeti, and her career is

threaded through with strong relationships and close collaborations with

a range of notable contemporary composers, including Tan Dun,

Jarosław Kapuściński, Andy Akiho, Pamela Z, Lukas Ligeti, Cindy Cox,

Annie Gosfield and György Kurtág. With a deft poetic touch, Chai weaves

this wide-ranging repertoire into a gorgeous and lucid musical

tapestry.Chai is also a vital champion and early tester of the

groundbreaking synchronous score following software program,

Antescofo. Developed at IRCAM by scientist Arshia Cont, the software

offers a real time computer and animation response to live performance

elements, enabling performers to create multimedia presentations of

sophisticated and expressive fluency. Chai explored and helped hone

Antescofo in residence at IRCAM alongside frequent collaborator

Jarosław Kapuściński, and has since toured internationally with the

software offering multimedia performances in Shanghai, New York,

Havana, and elsewhere. In September 2019, Chai gave a TEDx Talk titled

When Classical Music Meets Technology.

Other notable highlights include her 2012 Carnegie Hall recital debut;

many performances at (le) Poisson Rouge, including a 2016

Antescofo-supported program, Where’s Chopin?; her 2018 Wigmore

Hall debut with a program exploring the relation between color and

sound; lectures and recitals at Shanghai Symphony Hall, Shanghai

Concert Hall, and Shanghai Mercedes Benz Arena; a featured

performance at Tan Dun’s International Music Medicine Festival in

Qingdao; the Leo Brouwer Festival in Havana, Cuba; Philippe Manoury’s

double-piano concerto, Zones de turbulences, at the Warsaw Autumn

International Festival of Contemporary Music with duo partner, pianist

Adam Kośmieja and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra; and

much more.

Her immersive approach to music is also channeled into her work with

FaceArt Institute of Music, the Shanghai-based organization she founded

and runs, offering music education and an international exchange of

music and musicians in China and beyond. In summer 2019, Chai

oversees FaceArt’s first ever month-long Co-Creation Summer Festival,

which invites International piano and composition faculty. Additionally,

Chai served on the Board of Directors of the New York City-based

contemporary music organization Ear to Mind, and has published a

doctoral dissertation on Marco Stroppa’s Miniature Estrose which is

collected by many schools including Stanford and Harvard University.

Chai has recorded for labels such as Divine Art, Deutschlandfunk, Naxos,

ArpaViva and MSR. In 2010, she released her debut recording, New York

Love Songs, featuring interpretations of works by Cage and Ives among

others, and her most recent recording, (S)yn(e)sth(e)te, was released by

MSR Records in 2017. She can also be heard on Michael Vincent

Waller’s Five Easy Pieces and Cindy Cox’s Hierosgamos. In 2021, her

newest album on Bach, Ives and Schumann Kreisleriana received positive

reviews globally. The album was featured by Apple Music as one of its

selected best Classical Music albums.

The recipient of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust’s 2011 Pianist/Composer

Commissioning Project, the DAAD Arts and Performance award in 2010,

Chamber Music America commissioning award and first prize winner of

the Keys to the Future Contemporary Solo Piano Festival, Jenny Q Chai

studied at the Shanghai Music Conservatory, the Curtis Institute of Music,

the Manhattan School of Music, and in Cologne University of Music and

Dance. Her teachers include Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Seymour Lipkin,

Solomon Mikowsky, Marilyn Nonken, and Anthony de Mare. As of 2022,

Jenny Q Chai is a piano faculty member of the University of California

Berkeley, an alumni mentor at Curtis Institute of Music and an official

career mentor at Manhattan School of Music. In 2022, Chai became

Fazioli Global Piano Ambassador.

Chai is a social activist who works passionately on environmental causes

through her music and runs a personal animal shelter. She has rescued

over one hundred small animals in China since the pandemic and is an

active donor to many animal rescue organizations.