The son of Chinese immigrant parents, Federic Chiu made his debut at the age of fourteen with John Nelson and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. At Indiana University he studied piano with Karen Shaw as well as computer science, and took further piano instruction from Abbey Simon at the Juilliard School in New York. Chiu has lived for many years in France, commencing his career in Paris, and has performed in most of the major European cities. Regular appearances in North America include the Newport Music Festival, and he has participated in the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. Success in the Far East, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, has led to Chiu becoming a regular performer and teacher at the Beijing Central Conservatory. During the 2001–2002 season Chiu toured Japan and made his orchestral debut at Lincoln Center in New York, playing Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor Op. 22 with the Orchestre de Bretagne and Stefan Sanderling.
Chiu has won many awards including the American Pianists’ Association Fellowship, the Petscheck Award, and the Avery Fisher Career Grant. In order to raise his international profile Chiu entered the 1993 Van Cliburn Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, but his elimination before the final round generated much publicity and protest.
Chiu’s repertoire is based around the nineteenth century and includes piano transcriptions (as does that of his teacher Abbey Simon), Prokofiev, Liszt, Chopin and Mendelssohn. Chamber music is an important part of Chiu’s life: in 1991 he founded the chamber music festival ‘Consonances’ in Saint Nazasire with violinist Philippe Graffin and, because his brother is a violinist, has worked at Indiana University with Joseph Gingold. Chiu also often collaborates with violinists Pierre Amoyal and Joshua Bell.
Chiu has made around twenty compact discs for Harmonia Mundi USA. These include his first disc from 1991, a fine collection of piano transcriptions including the Arabesques on themes from An der schönen blauen Donau by Adolf Schulz-Evler so famously recorded by Josef Lhévinne, and an expertly structured Liebestod, in the Liszt arrangement of Wagner, a performance which is controlled rather than erotic. A disc of Chopin’s Études Op.10 is interestingly coupled with all of his rondos, and this shows Chiu’s penchant for interesting and unusual programming. His largest project is of the complete works of Prokofiev for solo piano, comprising nine volumes, while his own transcription of two movements from Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé is eminently successful. His fleet fingers and sparse use of the pedal are ideal for Chopin’s Étude Op. 10 No. 4 and the last movement of Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 8 although he does not have the ruggedness or grim determination of Richter or Gilels in Prokofiev. A disc of Liszt’s transcription of Schubert’s Schwanengesang is particularly good with Chiu creating a beautiful sound and conveying all the emotion of the songs devoid of their text. Chiu has also recorded violin sonatas by Grieg and Prokofiev with Pierre Amoyal.
Chiu also plays and records rarely-heard piano music (some of which has appeared on the Danacord label), and for Rossini’s bicentennial recorded selections from that composer’s Péchés de vieillesse and Liszt’s transcription of the Guillaume Tell overture. Another success was a recording of Mendelssohn’s piano sonatas which was selected as Record of the Year by Stereo Review, the Wall Street Journal commenting that it was ‘…among the most soul-satisfying releases of the past few years’. Chiu has also played Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in concert.
