george xiaoyuan fu

American pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu is “one of the most exciting pianists of our time… a deep thinker, thoroughly in command” (The Arts Desk). The winner of BBC Music Magazine’s 2024 Newcomer Award, he is garnering international acclaim as a fearless and probing interpreter of a wide array of music, combining “phenomenal technique with a profound sense of interpretative clarity” (Apple Music).

Highlights for Fu’s 2025-26 season include his solo debut at the Frick Collection in New York City, playing the entire cycle of Oliver Messiaen’ Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus; as well as a new solo piano commission he is writing for his recital at Wigmore Hall in London. He also appears at the Concertgebuow and with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia with his ensemble, Trio Zimbalist, comprised of violinist Josef Špaček and cellist Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin.

Fu has appeared throughout major venues around the world such as the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, 92nd Street Y, Konzerthaus Berlin, Kennedy Center, St Martin In the Fields, the Southbank Centre, and Kings Place. As concerto soloist he has performed with National Symphony Orchestra (USA), Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. He appears regularly at festivals worldwide such as the Aldeburgh, Ryedale, Presteigne, Tanglewood, Smetanova Litomyšl, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals. His performances and interviews have been featured on broadcasts around the world, ranging from BBC Radio 3 and National Public Radio, to appearances on PBS/American Public Television and On Stage At Curtis in Philadelphia. In addition to Trio Zimbalist, Fu enjoys fruitful collaborations with a wide variety of artists such as Roberto Díaz (viola), Dmitri Sitkovetsky (violin), Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin), Mika Sasaki (piano), Liv Redpath (soprano), and Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano).

As an emerging composer, Fu’s growing catalogue of original works and arrangements exhibits fresh imagination and virtuosity, all the while drawing from a lifetime of studying a vast repertoire spanning several centuries. His Passacaglia on a Theme by Radiohead was recently featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered and hailed as “kind of mind-blowing” by Robin Hilton; while his arrangements of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 and Smetana’s Dance of the Comedians have seen successful debuts internationally. This year Trio Zimbalist will debut his first Piano Trio throughout concerts in the US.

Fu’s second studio album, Colouring Book, was released with Platoon Classical in March 2025 to international acclaim, with Gramophone Magazine hailing it as one of the best classical releases of the year: “Fu plays his own music with tremendous authority and colouristic resources, as he also does with the Cruttwell-Reade and Aucoin selections… As for the Debussy Études, Fu’s recordings contain some of the most enchantingly characterised interpretations I’ve heard since those of Ju-Ying Song, Florent Boffard, Mitsuko Uchida and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. Yes, they’re that good!” (Jed Distler) His first solo album, MIRRORS (Platoon), won BBC Music Magazine’s 2024 Newcomer Award for best debut release.

Fu made his concerto debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center at the age of 17. After earning a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University, Fu studied with Jonathan Biss and Meng-Chieh Liu at the Curtis Institute of Music, and then with Christopher Elton and the Dame Myra Hess Chair of Piano Joanna MacGregor at the Royal Academy of Music. Additional mentors have included David Ludwig and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. He resides in London.

Current as of July 2025