ON THIS DAY

Today is VC Artist Yu-Chien Benny Tseng's 30th Birthday!

August 24, 2020

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Benny is a former top winner at the Sarasate, Isang Yun and Tchaikovsky International Violin Competitions.

Today is Taiwanese violin virtuoso, VC Artist Yu-Chien Benny Tseng's 30th birthday!

Born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1994, Tseng started to study the violin at 5. By the age of 6, he had already performed with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. In Taiwan he studied with Po-Shan Lin, Ying-Liang Shen, I-Ching Li (from 2000-2005) and C. Nanette Chen (from 2005-2008).

In 2008 he pursued studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Aaron Rosand and Ida Kavafian,

In 2015 Tseng won the XV International Tchaikovsky Violin Competition, and in 2016 he was signed on to record for Deutsche Grammophone.

Previously, Tseng also won first prize at the Singapore International Violin Competition (2015), the Isang Yun Violin Competition (2011) in Korea, and the Sarasate Violin Competition (2009) in Spain.

In addition to these achievements, he was awarded 5th place and the 'Audience Prize' at the 2012 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition - aged just 17.

Since his competition successes, Yu-Chien has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, London Philharmonia Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra of Belgium, Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan Philharmonic, China Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta and among many others.

He has worked with conductors Valery Gergiev, Jiří Bělohlávek, Mikhail Pletnev, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Vänskä, Jacek Kaspszyk and Lan Shui.

Tseng plays on the “ex Jules Massenet” 1735 Nicolo Gagliano violin, on generous loan from a private collector.