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's 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.
Recent solo engagements have included London (Wigmore Hall), Leeds, Harrogate and Liverpool. In Spring 2025 Junyan collaborated 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. 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 holds a fellowship with the RAM, having recently graduated with a first class honours MA degree. She was awarded the Aud Jebsen Piano fellowship 2024-2025.
More information: Junyan Chen
Photo credit: Neil Emerson
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BRILLIANCE AND DELICACY AT SKIPTON MUSIC
Skipton Music’s 2025-26 season continued with a beautifully balanced recital by the pianist Junyan Chen, second prize winner in the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition.
Junyan dazzled us with her breathtaking virtuosity in the two toccata-like movements from Ravel’s “Tombeau de Couperin” and his hysterical “La Valse”. But much of the programme consisted of more delicate pieces, played with consummate mastery of the keyboard and sensitivity to style. The French theme was underlined by four harpsichord pieces by Francois Couperin, sounding totally convincing on the modern piano; and two early pieces by the organist Olivier Messiaen. In the Ravel suite, the “Forlane” stood out for the delicacy with which Junyan brought out the strange, almost hypnotic harmonies, and the concluding toccata brought the first half of the concert to an exuberant conclusion.
In the second half, Junyan departed for a moment from French composers to give us the “Variations on Balkan themes” by the American composer Amy Beach. This was totally new to your reviewer, and probably to most of the audience, but Junyan was a convincing advocate, bringing out the haunting sadness of the principal theme even underneath the increasingly elaborate variations. And at the end of the concert, after the barnstorming conclusion to “La Valse”, she delighted us not with further fireworks but with two delicate and wistful arrangements of jazz standards. Skipton was indeed fortunate to hear such a talented and complete artist as she begins what will surely be a glittering career.
The evening started with presentations to two people who have made an outstanding contribution to Skipton Music over the years, the Concerts Secretary Sally Johnson and the treasurer Peter Leach. They are handing over the society in rude good health to their successors and we wish them well in their “retirement”.
Charles Dobson
Click here to sign up for Listening Club! Welcome to the Skipton Music Listening Club. Each month, we choose a piece of music which is being performed in that month's Skipton Music Concert and the week before the concert, we meet online to listen and have a chat about it - hopefully with some special […]
