Pianist Gloria Cheng is widely recognized as one of today's foremost interp… Read Full Bio ↴Pianist Gloria Cheng is widely recognized as one of today's foremost interpreters of contemporary music. She has premiered dozens of new compositions including works composed specifically for her by John Adams, Mark Applebaum, Pierre Boulez, Don Davis, Joan Huang, Terry Riley, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Andrew Waggoner. Of the world premiere of Salonen’s Dichotomie, the Los Angeles Times described her performance as “miraculous in the sheer speed and sureness of her fingers, in the rich depth of color and sonority she obtained from the piano, and in the sheer expression of joy she brought to a demanding new work.” Gramophone has described her as “technically fearless,” and the New York Times has praised her “impressive fluency and power.”

In addition to acclaimed performances of the established repertoire, Ms. Cheng’s ardent dedication to contemporary music has brought about close collaborations with Thomas Adès, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, John Harbison, György Ligeti, Magnus Lindberg, Witold Lutoslawski, and Steven Stucky. She is favored by some of the world’s most demanding composer/conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Oliver Knussen.

In May, 2003, Ms. Cheng was the soloist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic's historic final concerts at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, playing Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques under Pierre Boulez. Other recent engagements include appearances at the Pacific Symphony’s American Composers Festival, Chicago Humanities Festival, Los Angeles Philharmonic Minimalism Festival and Green Umbrella series, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, John Adams’ Century Rolls with the Long Beach Symphony, Stravinsky's Petrouchka with the New York Philharmonic, Lou Harrison's Piano Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony, and her annual recital on the Los Angeles-based Piano Spheres series. Other projects have brought Ms. Cheng to festivals at Ojai, Tanglewood, Aspen, Other Minds, and Kuhmo (Finland), as well as to venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Théâtre du Châtelet.

Ms. Cheng's solo discs include music by Messiaen on Koch and Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley on Telarc. Her second Telarc release, Piano Dance: A 20th-Century Portrait, was selected as Instrumental Pick of the Month by the editors of BBC Music Magazine. Ms Cheng, who holds a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University and graduate degrees in Music from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California, is on the faculty at UCLA.