Raised in British Columbia and California’s Bay Area, pianist Andrew Zhou has been noted for his “great sensitivity” and “luminous technique” (Anaclase), as well as performances of “extraordinary energy” whose “sonic range and expressive power stun under his steely fingers” (ResMusica). He is the second-prize laureate at the Concours International de Piano d’Orléans, where he garnered four special awards. Mr. Zhou works closely with today’s leading composers, including Unsuk Chin, Liza Lim, and Walter Zimmermann, having performed significant national premieres of their works. He has also been the dedicatee and first performer of countless works by a generation of young composers. Appearances in major venues include the KKL (Switzerland), Tongyeong Concert Hall (Korea), and the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord (Paris) and commissioning grants have been awarded by the Arts Council of Ireland and the Fromm Foundation.

Polymathic in temperament, Mr. Zhou composes, improvises, and opines on sundry topics intersecting the musical, social, and literary, frequently on Zhouology, his Substack newsletter. Alongside contemporary works, he specializes in late 19th-/early 20th-century French music, much of which is neglected today. He is a fierce proponent of recovering historically erased works, while his performances make the most experimental and complex scores accessible to audiences. He is a core member of New York-based PinkNoise and the half of the piano duo HereNowHear, which commissions boundary-breaking repertoire in orbit of Stockhausen’s Mantra. Recent albums include “sedgeflowers | MANTRA” and “Présences Lointaines” (Solstice). From 2021 to 2023, he curated and coached as a Contemporary Leader for the Lucerne Festival Academy (Switzerland).

Mr. Zhou is Assistant Teaching Professor at Syracuse University and teaches at Cornell University. Primary teachers include Xak Bjerken, Bruce Brubaker, and Thomas Schultz, alongside influential work with Teresa Dybvig, Françoise Thinat, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Tamara Stefanovich. A graduate of Stanford University, New England Conservatory, and Cornell, where he earned his doctorate, he has studied nine languages (and speaks six to varying degrees of adeptness). His crossword puzzles have appeared in the New York Times. (andrew-zhou.com)