Belle Chen

Born in Kaohsiung on the island of Taiwan on August 17, 1988, classical pianist Belle Chen grew up in Brisbane, Australia, with her younger brother, violinist Eddy Chen, future member of the TwoSet Violin duo. A finalist in the Australian National Piano Award in 2010, she moved to London, England the following year to continue her studies at the Royal Academy of Music. It was during this period that the pianist began to experiment with the multiple sonic possibilities that would be integrated into her classically inspired pieces. After winning the Classical Rising Star Award at the London Music Awards in 2015, she quickly became a star performer, appearing on radio, television, and at music events such as the BBC's Latitude Festival in 2016, and BBC Radio 3's 70th anniversary concert at the Royal Festival Hall. In each of her recordings, Belle Chen mixes her own compositions with pieces by composer-pianists such as Debussy, Ravel, Albéniz, Chopin, and Rachmaninov, and ambient sounds drawn from her interest in experimental music. Her debut album, Listen, London: First Impression (2014), was followed by Mediterranean Sounds (2016), Mademoiselle (2017), Departure (2018) and Destinations (2020). During the Covid-19 pandemic-related lockdown, Belle Chen used her time to inaugurate a cycle of nocturnal piano sessions, released in three volumes under the title Late Night Sessions: At Home, The Storyteller, and New Dawn. After the 2022 release of the intimate collection Years of Pilgrimage, with piano as the sole acoustic environment, she released Ravel in the Forest (2024), which reached number 7 in the British classical music charts.

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