Internationally recognized pianist Yuan Sheng has performed in more than twenty countries as a recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist. The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Sheng’s ear for balance is unfailing…the attraction was entirely visceral.” New York Concert Review says, “Mr. Sheng… is an artist of the highest quality”  Renowned music author David Dubal states: “… Just listen to him, you will be charmed and touched!” The International Piano Magazine called Yuan Sheng “The nation’s (China’s) premier interpreter of Bach.”
 
Mr. Sheng has performed in Carnegie Hall in New York, Ford Performing Arts Center in Toronto, Seoul National Center for the Performing Arts in South Korea, as well as National Center for the Performing Arts, Forbidden City Concert Hall, Beijing Concert Hall in Beijing, and Shanghai Concert Hall in Shanghai, China. He has been heard and seen on US stations WQXR, WGBH, and NPR; and on National Radio, Spain, National Radio, France, National Television, Poland, China Central TV, and Beijing Music Radio.
 
Currently on the Piano faculty of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, .Mr. Sheng has given lectures and master classes in the U. S., Canada, China, Croatia, Germany, South Korea and the Philippines.
 
Born to a family of musicians in Beijing, Yuan Sheng began his music studies with his mother at age five, continuing them later at the Central Conservatory with Professors Qifang Li, Huili Li, and Guangren Zhou.  From 1991 to 1997 Yuan Sheng was a scholarship student of Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where he completed his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. His interest in the music of Bach inspired him to study intensively with Rosalyn Tureck.

Mr. Sheng’s performances and research on the music of Bach have attracted international attention in recent years. The New York Times said that “… the A major and A minor Preludes and Fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, were models of clarity, balance and proportion. That is not to say that they were straightforward or unmediated: Mr. Sheng made the A minor Prelude into a fiery drama, with the equally energetic but stunningly voiced Fugue as an otherworldly rejoinder.” During the 2009-10 season Mr. Sheng gave a 5-recital series of All-Bach Programs as well as a 5-lecture series on Bach at the Beijing Forbidden City Concert Hall.

This is Yuan Sheng’s second Chopin concert in Ashburnham.