‘Haochen Zhang’

An unusual confession for a young pianist: “I feel irresistibly drawn to music of a reflective and introspective nature,” explains Chinese Haochen Zhang, frankly acknowledging that this affinity has something to do with his inward-looking personality. When asked about his idols, no wonder that he mentions sensitive poets of the piano like Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, and Alfred Cortot. Yet precisely because he keeps his distance from keyboard thunder and rattling virtuosity, he has developed a remarkable career: Zhang took first prize and the gold medal in the Van Cliburn Competition in 2009, when he was only 19 years old, and received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant Award in 2017. In the United States, where he studied with Gary Graffman, he has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he has appeared in Europe with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic. This success story continues at the Centre for Fine Arts.