Biography
Hailed by the Boston Music Intelligencer as a “heroic piano soloist” with “stunning virtuosity”, Chinese-American pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. He has performed across the Americas and Europe at venues such as the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. His live performances and interviews have been featured on several public television and radio broadcasts throughout the United States, such as On Stage At Curtis, Articulate with Jim Cotter, Performance Today, and Philadelphia’s Music Makers on WRTI Radio in Philadelphia.
After a chamber music tour of Latin America in the summer of 2019 in a trio with violist Roberto Diaz, this season sees George make important solo debut performances in London (Steinway Hall), Washington D.C. (Phillips Collection), and Chicago (Chicago Cultural Center). 2020 also marks the second year of the TaoArts Chamber Music Festival, an annual series in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area of which George is the Founder and co-Artistic Director.
Interested in interdisciplinary work, George has performed in various capacities: from frequently being an active chamber musician with duo partners and ensembles around the world; to collaborating in a ballet and drama productions around the world; to writing and giving lecture-recitals on musical performance. An avid performer of contemporary music, George has collaborated with Krzysztof Penderecki, Harrison Birtwistle, Unsuk Chin, Matthew Aucoin, and Freya Waley-Cohen, in addition to being an active composer himself.
After a widely acclaimed performance as piano soloist in Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie alongside Stefan Asbury at the Tanglewood Music Festival, George was then selected as a New Fromm Player, being featured as a piano soloist in Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques with Vinay Parameswaran, as well as studying the solo piano works of Messiaen with Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
A native of Frederick, Maryland, George holds degrees from Harvard College, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Royal Academy of Music, having studied with Meng-Chieh Liu, Jonathan Biss, Christopher Elton and Joanna MacGregor. He is currently a piano fellow at the Royal Academy of Music.