Junyan Chen joins us as our soloist on Saturday 28 June 2025
performing the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor Op 30
Junyan Chen won Second Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition 2024, also winning the chamber music prize and Alexandra Dariescu award for a work by a woman composer. In the competition final, she performed Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 4 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Domingo Hindoyan. She has also performed this work with Edward Gardner and the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, in a concert that was live-streamed on Classic FM.
Forthcoming solo engagements include London (Wigmore Hall), Leeds, Harrogate, and Liverpool. In 2025 Junyan will collaborate with the Manchester Collective in a project including a world premiere by Héloïse Werner with performances in Manchester, Leeds, and London (Southbank Centre). An enthusiastic performer of contemporary music, she has collaborated with Hans Abrahamsen whose Piano Concerto she performed with the Manson Ensemble at the Royal Academy of Music. In addition, she was invited to take part in Eleanor Alberga's music festival Arcadia in 2022, recording and performing Dancing with the Shadows and On a Bat's Back I Do Fly. She has also collaborated with composers Mark Anthony-Turnage and Dominic Muldowney.
Junyan's debut solo album, It's Time, features works by Fazil Say, Unsuk Chin, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Eleanor Alberga. Released by Linn Records in 2022, this disc explores cultural identity through different musical genres and art forms, including Turkish folk ballad, jazz, Russian poetry, and African dance.
Following her time at the Shanghai Conservatoire, Junyan moved to London and continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, with Professor Joanna MacGregor. She currently holds a fellowship with the RAM, having recently graduated with first class BMus and MA degrees as a Bicentenary Scholar.
