Sheng Cai - Piano Recital

June 7, 2026
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Sheng Cai - piano

 

About The Artists

Recently nominated for Canada's prestigious "2025 Oskar Morawetz Award for Excellence in Music Performance", Canadian pianist Sheng Cai has been delighting audience and critics across four continents with his electrifying performing charisma and individual personality. Recently described as "with seeming effortlessness and performing with gusto and a loving attention to detail" by Buffalo Hives in New York and as "having the inner passion paired with Rubinstein's nonchalance" by Thuringer Allgemeine in Germany. Sheng Cai has gained praises worldwide for his performances of major keyboard works for the past four centuries. With a number of prizes and awards, he continues to push the boundaries in interpreting both the established and rarities of the piano literature.

Since winning top prizes at Concours OSM (Montreal Symphony Competition / Concours Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal) and Toronto Symphony's Competition at fifteen years old, Sheng Cai has performed a broad spectrum of over thirty-five different piano concertos from Mozart to 21st century living composers with invitations to more than sixty orchestras worldwide as guest soloist. Recent concerto performance collaborations include the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Quebec Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Windsor Symphony, Canton Symphony of Ohio, Shanghai Symphony, Shenzhen Symphony, in Germany with Nuremberg Symphoniker, Erfurt Philharmonic, Sinfornieorchester Aachen, Thuringer Philharmonie, Gotha-Eisenach, Philharmonie Sudwestfalen, Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester, Orchestre National de Cannes in France, Biel Solothurn Symphony of Switzerland, Armenian National Philharmonic, Krakow Philharmonic of Poland, North Bohemian Philharmonic of Czech Republic, Malaga Philharmonic of Spain among many others, he has recently performed with many esteemed conductors, such as Keith Lockhart, Yoav Talmi, JoAnna Falletta, Gernardt Zimmermann, Sascha Goetzel, Rune Bergmann, David Lockington, Robert Moody, Charles Olivieri-Munroe, Yannis Pouspourikas, Myron Michailidis, Donato Cabrera, Dina Gilbert, Christopher Ward, Adam Johnson, Robert Franz, Edward Topchjan and Marco Rarisotto.

In solo recitals, Sheng Cai has been presented at many prestigious venues in North America and Europe,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 Centre in Birmingham, CBC's Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto , and other distinguished venues in Stratford, Elora, Montreal, Kingston and Winnipeg. As a chamber musician, Sheng Cai has collaborated with a number of fine artists, including Enso String Quartet and Pamina Quartet. Many of his recent performances have been broadcasted across North America and Europe such as Radio France Musique, CBC Radio Canada, WCLW Radio Ohio, WKNO Memphis Radio, WFMT Radio Chicago in US and Czech Radio.

Sheng Cai is a passionate recording artist, his first recording was a CD of works by Mozart and Martinu for the Canadian Broadcast Company. His most recent Schumann,Liszt, Grieg, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky discs on ATMA classique label gained international acclaim from the America Record Guide, Classic Today, the international Music web Review in UK , the Wholenote Magazine, Le Devoir in Canada and the Fanfare Music Magainze in US.

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, the International Young Artists Competition of Colorado, the Bay State Competition in Boston, and he was the youngest finalist and special prize winner at the Bosendorfer International Piano Competition in US. Recently he has been nominated for "2025 Oskar Morowetz Award for Excellence in Music Performance" by the Ontario Arts Council of Canada.

Sheng Cai is instrumental in advocating many neglected works that are peaks of the piano literature, works by composers such as Enescu, Kabalevsky, Kapustin, Medtner, Mathieu, Villa-Lobos and a number of his own works frequently show up on his concert programs, his creative programming have made audience aware of such treasures of the piano literature deserve a wider audience in the 21 century. He has also promoted and premiered many living composer's works worldwide such as composers Claudia Montero, Fazil Say and Vache Sharafyan.

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

Program

André Mathieu - Été Canadien (Canadian Summer) 

André Mathieu - primtemps Canadien (Canadian Spring) 

J. S. Bach Partita no.1 in B flat major BWV 825 

Oboe Sonata in D major, Op. 166 by Camille Saint-Saëns 

intermission

Etude de sonorite no 2 by Francois Morel

Excursions Op. 20 for piano solo, by Samuel Barber 

Chopin, Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brilliante, Op.22 

Tickets to the event are offered without cost. Donations are invited. Charitable tax receipts will be issued for donations over $25. All donations go to support emerging artists and future programming at the Academy.