“After my living a long life with the Rachmaninoff 3rd, it took this youthful musician to show me
the most imaginative and compelling performance of the work I have ever heard.
His lyrical approach throughout did not rule out heights of passion of enormous proportion.
His colors were limitless. The cadenza in the first movement was a revelation. The inner voices brought new light to structures. One could go on and on. Watch this award-winning performer.”
Henry Upper, The Republic

Allegheny RiverStone for the Arts is proud to bring back to its classical audience the extraordinary keyboard artistry of the Van Cliburn Award winner, Sean Chen, on Sunday, March 30, 2025 at 2 PM in a program featuring all four Chopin Ballades, Nikolai Meitner’s Sonata-Tale, op. 25, #1, Franz Liszt Tre sonetti di Petrarca and Sean’s own arrangement of the Paul Dukas Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

From the fiery pyrotechnics of Rachmaninoff to the delicate filigree of Nikolai Medtner, critics have been unanimous: “Los Angeles native Sean Chen has the rare ability to combine poetic musical sensibilities and dazzling technical prowess… coaxing subtle and surprising colors and textures from each work.”
— Paula Edelstein, LA Music Examiner (April 23, 2014)

The reviews have been superlative and unequaled in the biggest virtuosic repertoire: “… he delivered the most original and likely the best live performance I have ever experienced among the many such performances I have heard in my professional life.
(Brahms Piano Concerto #2).” (The Republic)

A “thoughtful musician well beyond his years” (The Republic), pianist Sean Chen shares his “alluring, colorfully shaded renditions” (New York Times) and “genuinely sensitive” (LA Times) playing with audiences around the world in solo and chamber recitals, concerto performances, and masterclasses. After winning the 2013 American Pianists Awards, winning the Bronze at the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and being named a 2015 Annenberg Fellow, Mr. Chen is now a Millsap Artist in Residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory.

Mr. Chen has performed with many prominent orchestras, including the Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Kansas City, San Diego, Knoxville, Hartford, Louisiana Philharmonic, Milwaukee, North Carolina, Pasadena, Phoenix, Santa Fe, and New West Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Chamber Orchestras of Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and South Bay. He has collaborated with such esteemed conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Michael Stern, Gerard Schwarz, Nicholas McGegan, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Marcelo Lehninger, and James Judd. Solo recitals have brought him to major venues worldwide, including Jordan Hall in Boston, Subculture in New York City, the American Art Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Salle Cortot in Paris.