After the recent release of Chelsea Guo’s debut album, we thought you might like to learn more about this incredibly talented young pianist and soprano.

Have a browse below where we’ve gathered some video, links, words, and music.

“Chelsea Guo is without a doubt one of the most talented musicians I know. She is a brilliant pianist as well as an enormously talented singer.”
– Barbara Bonney

“When Chelsea plays the piano, I can hear the charming inner beauty of her singing voice behind it, deep, noble and shining.”

– Arie Vardi

Chelsea talks to us about her album

Chelsea Guo is a musical polymath who brings her unique gifts as pianist and soprano to this album. A Chopin specialist and prize-winner at the 2020 Chopin Piano Competition, Guo performs solo piano works by Chopin including the Barcarolle in F-sharp minor, Op. 60, the scintillating Fantasie in F minor, Op. 49 and the 24 Preludes, an extraordinary set composed in every available key.

Guo’s exceptional talents are to the fore in three songs in which she both sings and plays: ‘In mir klingt ein Lied’, Ernst Marischka’s arrangement of the romantic Étude in E major, No. 3; Chopin’s passionate Polish song, Moja pieszczotka; and Rossini’s stunning aria ‘Di piacer mi balza il cor’ from La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie).

The instrument on which the recording was made is a Style 4 Steinway piano, built personally by Theodore Steinway in 1876, in what is often considered to be the “Golden Age” of piano making. The piano was discovered in Sydney, Australia in 1968 and restored twice, though it still retains all of its unique features.

Chelsea Guo was drawn to Chopin’s music at a young age, a relationship cemented by her mother’s improvised stories inspired by Chopin’s piano works. As Guo puts it, “the piano works on this album are so dear to me as they have lived with me through many milestones during my growth as a musician and a person.” For Guo, Chopin’s music “is incredibly raw in expression in a way that is unique to him; there’s no facade, no hiding. It’s so vulnerable and exposed. It’s unapologetic.”

During her piano studies, Chelsea Guo began singing seriously when Juilliard Pre-College gave her the option to learn a second instrument. She soon realised that programming recitals featuring both solo piano music and art song opened up a vast range of storytelling possibilities. Audiences were entranced, and after a particularly warm reception to her performance of Chopin’s three songs in Miami in the summer of 2019, she had the idea to put together an album including both piano and voice.

Chelsea Guo’s approach to storytelling through music is at the heart of this album, for which she chose a song written by Chopin, a song set to a melody by him, and an aria that seemed to influence him. Chopin wrote about Rossini’s aria ‘Di piacer mi balza il cor’ several times; he attended numerous Rossini operas and was in awe of the way the singers improvised. Guo suggests that when Chopin varies and embellishes each refrain in his piano music, he may have been directly inspired by the singers he had heard in Rossini operas. Guo responds to this connection in the album; of Rossini’s aria she explains: “When decorating the aria, I looked to ornamental passages in Chopin’s piano works as they were so deeply informed by singers of the time.”

Chelsea Guo is emphatic that she does not combine her dual roles as pianist and singer for the sake of it, but because the combination serves a real musical purpose. She values the creative control that comes with this process: “I get to inform exactly what I want to say, and I get to utilise every single note to do that.” Her singing “is just one new layer of a more expansive experience with Chopin’s music that my eyes have been opened to, so I was especially excited to integrate vocal music in the album and to take a deep dive into its influence on Chopin’s style – it was a fully immersive experience.”

Even those familiar with Chopin’s music are sure to hear something new in Chelsea Guo’s interpretations on this album. Her unique approach to programming this repertoire offers the listener fresh insights into Chopin’s world. Guo relishes the joy of uncovering more layers in Chopin’s music every time she plays it: “there’s always something new to find.”

‘As both a pianist and a singer Chelsea Guo is clearly a special talent’

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