The 'outstanding young Chinese-American pianist' Jessica Zhu (The Independent) received warm praise for her Wigmore Hall debut, given as part of the Park Lane Group's Young Artists Series in December 2011.
Winning the First Prize at the 2011 Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, and the Audience Prize at the Sussex International Piano Competition, Jessica Zhu has received numerous invitations for concerto performances. In 2012, she played with the Worthing Symphony Orchestra performing Schumann's Piano Concerto in a minor under the baton of John Gibbons. She also performed, in 2011, with the Croydon Symphony Orchestra at the Fairfield Hall in an electrifying performance of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and with the Finchley Chamber Orchestra in Mozart's Concerto in D minor, K466, after which the audience demanded an encore.
Jessica made her orchestral debut in 2006 as a student of Nancy Weems at the University of Houston, when she played Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Houston Symphony. She has since performed with many orchestras in America. In 2009 Jessica was awarded the highly coveted Marshall Scholarship with which she completed a Masters programme with distinction at the the Guildhall School of Music & Dramas, studying with Joan Havill. In 2011, she was awarded a Fellowship at the Guildhall studying with Paul Roberts and Ronan O'Hora and she is currently on the school's doctoral programme (DMA). She has also worked in master classes with Andras Schiff, Ferenc Rados, Abbey Simon, Pascal Devoyon, Arie Vardi, Boris Berman, Robert McDonald, among others.
Believing in using music to reach and educate audiences without easy access to the arts, Jessica is on the LiveMusicNow young artist scheme, performing in hospitals, elderly homes, and special education schools throughout the UK. In addition to the Wigmore Hall, Jessica has appeared at the Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre, St. James's Piccadilly, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the Manchester Bridgewater Hall, among others around the UK and in Europe.
Free recital (retiring collection)