“Cheng, a pianist who consistently fuses deep emotionality with exacting precision ...” (San Francisco Classical Voice)

“Pianist Gloria Cheng is one of the most adventurous interpreters of contemporary music around, and in a spectacular recital on Friday at the University of Maryland’s Gildenhorn Recital Hall — consisting almost entirely of works written in the 21st century — she showed just how surprising, eclectic and emotionally engaging.” (The Washington Post)

“It’s not just that Ms. Cheng plays these daunting pieces with such commanding technique, color and imagination. She has brought together works that fascinatingly complement one another.” (The New York Times)

"[It] was Cheng, who played with her customary refined brilliance for tone color, rhythmic devotion and striking capacity to make every gesture matter, that turned disparate pieces into both garland and garden." (Los Angeles Times)

GLORIA CHENG SHORT BIO

Over a distinguished and varied career, GRAMMY - and Emmy Award-winning pianist Gloria Cheng has been described by the New York Times as "an invaluable new-music advocate and a preferred collaborator of composers like Pierre Boulez and Esa-Pekka Salonen." She has been a concerto soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez, and on its acclaimed Green Umbrella series with Salonen and Oliver Knussen. As a recitalist she has appeared at the Ojai Music Festival (where her long association with Boulez began), Chicago Humanities Festival, William Kapell Festival, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, and Mendocino and Chautauqua Music Festivals. Her countless premieres and dedications include John Williams' Prelude and Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra (dedicated to her and pianist Lang Lang), Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Dichotomie, and Pierre Boulez’s courtes dérives à partir d’Éclat. She commissioned the 2-piano arrangement of Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face from Thomas Adès and premiered it with the composer on the Piano Spheres series. Winner of the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) GRAMMY for her 2008 recording, Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky, and Lutosławski, she received a second nomination for her 2013 disc, The Edge of Light: Messiaen/Saariaho. Her film-composer documentary, MONTAGE: Great Film Composers and the Piano, aired on PBS SoCal and captured a 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy. Her education includes a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University, a Woolley Scholarship for study in Paris, and graduate degrees in performance from UCLA and the University of Southern California, where her teachers included Aube Tzerko and John Perry. Her much sought-after classes and programs at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music bring students together with noted performers, composers, and scholars.

GLORIA CHENG FULL-LENGTH BIO

Over a distinguished and varied career highlighted by ongoing partnerships with major composers of our time, GRAMMY - and Emmy Award-winning pianist Gloria Cheng has been described by the New York Times as “an invaluable new-music advocate and a preferred collaborator of composers like Pierre Boulez and Esa-Pekka Salonen."

As a recitalist she has performed at the Ojai Music Festival (where her long association with Pierre Boulez began), Chicago Humanities Festival, William Kapell Festival, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Mendocino and Chautauqua Music Festivals. Her countless premieres and dedications include John Williams’ Prelude and Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra (dedicated to her and pianist Lang Lang), Salonen’s Dichotomie, and Pierre Boulez's courtes dérives à partir d'Éclat. She commissioned the 2-piano arrangement of Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face from Thomas Adès and premiered it with the composer on the Piano Spheres series.

From her home base of Los Angeles she has been a principal artist with the Piano Spheres series, Jacaranda Music, and Monday Evening Concerts. Cheng has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, and in Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques with Boulez on the orchestra's historic final concerts in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. On the LA Phil's acclaimed Green Umbrella series she performed Elliott Carter's Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord conducted by Oliver Knussen, and John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano with Jeffrey Milarsky. Other concerto appearances include the Seattle Modern Orchestra, Louisville and Shanghai Orchestras; and the Indianapolis, Pasadena, Long Beach, and Pacific Symphonies. In June, 2021 she performed the world* and European** premieres of John Williams' Prelude* and Scherzo** for Piano and Orchestra in Barcelona's Palau de la Musica under the direction of Marc Timón.

Winner of the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) GRAMMY for her 2008 recording, Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky, and Lutosławski, Cheng received a second nomination in 2013 for The Edge of Light: Messiaen/Saariaho. Her film composer project, MONTAGE: Great Film Composers and the Piano — where she documents and performs works written for her by Bruce Broughton, Don Davis, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Randy Newman, and John Williams — garnered numerous festival awards and aired on PBS SoCal, capturing the 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy Award for Independent Programming.

In 2018 she released Garlands for Steven Stucky — her star-studded and heartfelt CD tribute to the late composer by 32 of his friends and former students. Proceeds support the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Steven Stucky Composer Fellowship Fund, which engages young composers in multi-year educational programs with the orchestra.

She has produced Music at Black Mountain College for the Armand Hammer Museum's related exhibit; BEYOND MUSIC: Composition and Performance in the Age of Augmented Reality at UCLA (an international gathering of composers and media artists featuring Kaija Saariaho and Jean-Baptiste Barrière); and Inside the (G)Earbox, a daylong UCLA symposium marking the 70th birthday of composer John Adams. Her current project, ROOT PROGESSIONS, explores the nexus of jazz and experimental music in six commissions from noted composer/improvisers Anthony Davis, Jon Jang, James Newton, Arturo O'Farrill, Linda May Han Oh, and Gernot Wolfgang.

Prior to embarking on her musical career she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Stanford University, a Woolley Scholarship for study in Paris, and degrees in performance from UCLA and the University of Southern California, where her teachers included Aube Tzerko and John Perry.

As an Adjunct Professor at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, her much sought-after classes and programs bring students together with noted performers, composers, and scholars. She is frequently invited to advocate for contemporary music and in 2012 was selected as a Regents Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. The Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music awarded her their annual Prize in 2023.

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