Songs of Love

Jenny Q Chai is a phenomenon… a pianist of incredible talent, at home in core repertoire and a champion and noted interpreter of 20th century and contemporary works, as well as working to develop new interactive music score software and teaching in China and the USA. She founded and manages the Face Art Institute, a Shanghai-based body devoted to international exchange of music and musicians and served on the board of Ear to Mind, the contemporary music organization in New York.  Her other work as well as her concert schedule is too extensive to be listed here; she is currently based both in Shanghai and in California where she is a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. The New Yorker described Jenny as “A pianist whose dazzling facility is matched by her deep musicality”.  On top of all that she also projects a modern and liberated self image. Jenny has a special connection with Robert Schumann, whose work she learned from her esteemed first teacher at the Curtis Institute, the late Seymour Lipkin, with whom she studied from the ages of 12 to 19.  She has a special love for Kreisleriana which she says never grows old but ’ lives inside of you’.  Hence the title, “Songs of Love”. This album which presents Kreisleriana together with two movements by Bach and Ives is Jenny’s tribute to Seymour Lipkin who she calls ‘my music grandpa’. It is also a very fine recital by a superbly talented musician who is gathering fans like a rock star.