Biography
Hailed by the Boston Music Intelligencer as a “heroic piano soloist” with “stunning virtuosity”, Chinese-American pianist George X. Fu has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and Bach Society Orchestra of Harvard University. He has performed at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the Lied Center at the University of Kansas, the Japanese Embassy in London and the German Embassy in Washington D.C.. 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. He has won top prizes in the Oberlin (now Cooper), Lennox, Blount-Slawson, Lee University, and National Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competitions.
As a dedicated chamber musician, George frequently performs alongside duo partners and ensembles from around the world, and has often appeared with the Curtis 20/21 Ensemble as both soloist and collaborative musician. Keenly interested in interdisciplinary work, George has worked in various capacities: from collaborating in dance projects with dancers Isaac and Esteban Hernandez, and Barbara Gail Montero; to serving as music director and conductor of the Dunster House Opera Society at Harvard University.
George frequently collaborates with composers in premiering new works, and also composes his own works. He recently commissioned piano etudes by young composers Matthew Aucoin and Andrew Hsu for a lecture-recital on technique at the Curtis Institute of Music. He also premiered and recorded a set of piano etudes by Dmitri Tymoczko at Princeton University.
After a widely acclaimed performance as piano soloist in Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie alongside Stefan Asbury at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2016, George was then selected as a New Fromm Player for Tanglewood’s 2017 summer season, being featured as a piano soloist in Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques with Vinay Parameswaran, studying the solo piano works of Messiaen with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and focusing intensely on the work of living composers alongside the quartet in residence.
A native of Frederick, Maryland, George began piano studies at the age of 5. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and a degree in piano performance at the Curtis Institute of Music, studying with Jonathan Biss and Meng-Chieh Liu. He currently studies with Christopher Elton and Joanna MacGregor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his studies are generously supported by the Tobias Matthay and Skelton Scholarships.
~Updated Autumn 2017