Chetham's School of Music

“Just as painters and visual artists employ the vast range of colours in the chromatic spectrum, composers and performers use the endless sonic spectrum to create and evoke musical worlds. As a pianist and an amateur painter, I have discovered a personal form of synaesthesia – a melding of senses – in regard to how I experience music. This all-French programme presents repertoire that truly lives at the intersection of colour and sound, exploring this meeting of the senses. While practicing and preparing each piece of music, I seek to translate my mental imagery into the real world, both through my musical performance and on the canvas.”

Based in both Shanghai and Paris, Chai’s instinctive understanding of new music is complemented by a deep grounding in core repertoire, with special affinity for Schumann, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Bach, Debussy, and Ravel. She is a noted interpreter of 20th-century masters Cage, Messiaen, and Ligeti, and her career is threaded through with strong relationships and close collaborations with a range of notable contemporary composers, including Jarosław Kapuściński, Cindy Cox, Andy Akiho, and György Kurtág. With a deft poetic touch, Chai weaves this wide-ranging repertoire into a gorgeous and lucid musical tapestry.