Described as “having the inner passion paired with Rubinstein’s nonchalance” by Thüringer Allgemeine in Germany, Canadian pianist Sheng Cai has embraced the keyboard tradition which epitomizes the greatness of the Romantic virtuoso. His performances of major keyboard works of the past centuries have touched audiences and won the praise of critics on four continents. Opera Plus praised his playing as having “Accurate interpretation and great interplay…excellent technique, spontaneous rhythmic feeling and the use of the maximum sound color of the piano,” and The Birmingham News described him as a pianist “with great confidence…[who] gave more lucidity, color and power.” Sheng Cai has been honored with a number of prizes and awards, and continues to push the boundaries in interpreting both the established works and rarities of the piano literature.

Since his debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at just 15 years old, Sheng Cai has performed a broad spectrum of concerto repertoire by Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Gershwin, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns, Schumann, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky, with invitations to dozens of orchestras worldwide as a guest soloist. Recent concerto performances include performances with the symphonies of Toronto, Québec, Calgary, Windsor, Canton, Fort Collins, New Bedford, Irving, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, as well as with the Philharmonisches Orchester Erfurt in Germany, Kraków Philharmonic of Poland, North Czech Philharmonic, Jalisco Philharmonic and Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Rio in Mexico, Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogota in Colombia, among many others. In Canada, Sheng Cai was also invited to perform with the Vancouver Symphony for the Lunar New Year gala concert and has performed with numerous regional orchestras in the U.S. and Canada from coast to coast. He has recently worked with many conductors including Keith Lockhart, Yoav Talmi, David Lockington, Robert Moody, Charles Olivieri-Munroe, Myron Michailidis, Donato Cabrera, Robert Franz, Dina Gilbert, Guoyong Zhang, Marco Parisotto, and Eckart Preu.

In solo recitals, Sheng Cai has been heard in many prestigious venues in North America, such as Steinway Hall in New York, Jordan Hall in Boston, Chicago’s International Music Center, the Cleveland Play House, the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham, CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, and other distinguished venues in Stratford, Elora, Montreal, and Winnipeg. In China, he inaugurated the Ningbo Concert Hall, giving both recitals and concerto performances. As a chamber musician, Sheng Cai has collaborated with a number of fine artists including the Enso String Quartet. Many of his performances have been broadcast across North America, including on CBC Radio Canada and WCLV radio station in Ohio.

Sheng Cai is a passionate recording artist. His first recording was an album of works by Mozart and Martinu for CBC. His recent Schumann and Liszt album releases on the Centaur and ATMA Classique labels gained international acclaim from the American Record Guide, MusicWeb International (U.K.), WholeNote (Canada), and Fanfare (U.S.).

He was a top prize-winner at many competitions throughout his teenage years, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition (Concours OSM) , Toronto Symphony Piano Competition, International Young Artists Competition of Colorado, and the Bay State Piano Competition in Boston, and he was the youngest finalist and special prize-winner at the Bösendorfer International Piano Competition in the U.S.

Sheng Cai is instrumental in advocating for many neglected works that are peaks of the piano literature by composers such as Enescu, Kabalevsky, Kapustin, Medtner, Morawetz, and Villa-Lobos. His creative programming has made audiences aware of such treasures of the piano literature that deserve a wider audience.

Sheng Cai began his studies in Canada and the U.S., where he was a student at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and The Juilliard School’s pre-college division in New York. He received his Bachelor of Music under full scholarship at the New England Conservatory in Boston. His teachers and mentors include pianists Anton Kuerti, Gary Graffman, and Russell Sherman.