Ning An, Piano

Pianist Ning An, First Prize Winner of the 2003 William Kapell Piano Competition, made his concerto debut at the age of sixteen, performing the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra. He has since appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Belgian National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Flemish Radio Symphony, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra and has worked with such conductors as Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Kasmierz Kord, Jajha Ling, and Sergiu Comissiona. Mr. An has presented recitals at venues such as Salle Verdi (Milan, Italy), Salle Cortot (Paris), and the Palais de Beaux Arts in Antwerp. He has been invited to perform at numerous festivals, including the International Chopin Festival in Duszinski, Poland, the Gina Bachauer Piano Festival in Salt Lake City, New Hampshire's Monadnock Music Festival, the Bourglinster Festival in Luxembourg, and the Interlaken Music Festival in Switzerland. Mr. An was also a soloist with the Warsaw Philharmonic during their 2001 Centennial world tour.

Pianist Ning An's Carnegie Hall debut, an all-Chopin program presented by the Chopin Foundation of the United States in Weill Recital Hall, was praised in the New York Concert Review for the "almost sculpted clarity of his playing, and his ability to maintain balance and tension in large-scale dramatic forms. Ning An impresses with his developed musicianship, his discerning sense of form and style, his penetrating and illuminating interpretation, and his perfect technical command. I have no doubt that he will join the ranks of the finest interpreters of Chopin."

A semi-finalist in the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition, Mr. An was the Third Prize winner of the 1999 Queen Elizabeth Music Competition and First Prize Winner in the 2000 National Chopin Piano Competition. In addition, he received the Alfred Cortot Prize at the 2000 International Chopin Competition. Other top prizes he has received are from the American Pianists Association, the Kosciusko Chopin Competition, and the Stravinsky International Piano Competition. Mr. An was the Third Prize winner of the 2002 Paloma O'Shea Santander Competition in Spain, and won the audience prize at the 2002 Rachmaninoff International Competition held in Pasadena, California.

On June 5, 2004, Mr. An returned to the site of his Kappel triumph to perform at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; his performance was greeted stunning reviews: "clearly a major 21st Century talent that has only begun to make its presence felt in the classical musical world" (Washington Times).

Ning An and his wife Gloria Chien perform as a piano duo. Their performance of Mozart's Concerto for two pianos with the Chattanooga Symphony in February 2006 was lauded by the press: "From the outset the young couple commanded attention with their elegant and finely-measured playing. Both exhibited an evenly matched and nearly flawless technique with liquid tone and silky runs that became indistinguishable from each other." (www.chattanoogan.com).

Ning An and Gloria Chien are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory of Music, where they studied with Russell Sherman. Ning An is now Artist-in-Residence and Gloria Chien heads the piano department at Lee University in Tennessee.