Pianist Sa-Chen has been delighting audiences in Australia, China, England, Japan, and Poland. She had first major performance in 1996. At the age of 16, she performed live in a BBC Competition with Sir Simon Rattle conducting the City of Birmingham Symphonic Orchestra. The British public was captivated.
Born in China in 1979, she began her musical studies with Dan Zhasyi, first at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music and then at the Shenzhen School of Arts. After her success in the Music Competition in Leeds (1996), she gave a much-acclaimed debut recital at London‘s Wigmore Hall and was subsequently offered a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She has been studying there with Joan Havill since 1997.
Her other major performances include those with the Shanghai Philharmonic, at the Barbican Centre in London and at the Sydney Opera House. She has given solo recitals at Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, and for the Chopin Society in London. In December 2000, she went on a 12-city tour of Japan; then in November 2001, she has been re-invited for a concert tour in Austria and Germany with the Guargzhon Symphonic Orchestra.
Major awards and honours began in 1994 for Sa-Chen, when she won the first prize at the Beijing International Piano Competition. Since then, she has won prizes in Leeds in 1996, Second Prize at the Dudley Millennium Competition in 2000, the 1999 Spencer Bouney Memorial Prize at Guildhall, Silver Medal and Crystal Glass Trophy in the Gold Media Concerto Competition 2000, First Prize of the Beethoven Competition 2000 and the concert recital Diploma Premier Prix of Guildhall 2000. Her most recent and perhaps most internationally significant award was at the 14th International Chopin Piano Competition in October 2000, when she won the Best Polonaise Performance Award and as well as Fourth Prize overall.
Sa-Chen has lived in London since 1997. She has obtained her Master’s Degree in Performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is now a student of Prof. Arie Vardi at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany.