The Amazing Musical Journey of Rueibin Chen
Interview by The Panorama Magazine
Aug 2015
The taiwanese musical prodigy who became famous at a young age: Rueibin Chen, a pianist who now lives in Austria.
In 1980, then only 13 years old, Chen traveled on his own to Austria to study music. At age 16, he came to public attention by winning the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition in Italy. In the more than three decades since then, Chen has won countless prizes from all over the world and received rave reviews for his performances. Naturally, accolades have also come from the land of his birth Taiwan.
In 1980, then only 13 years old, Chen traveled on his own to Austria to study music. At age 16, he came to public attention by winning the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition in Italy. In the more than three decades since then, Chen has won countless prizes from all over the world and received rave reviews for his performances. Naturally, accolades have also come from the land of his birth Taiwan.
Although this internationally renowned pianist left home at a young age, his local accent remains unchanged and today Chen still speaks in heavily Taiwanese-accented Mandarin Chinese. It gives one a sense of familiarity, and the sense of distance that one might feel talking with a world-famous classical musician disappears. In addition, his music carries a profound nostalgia for home, and reminds us that music has no borders.
Rueibin Chen had already won gold medals in five major international competitions before he was 20. His technique and his sensitive musicality had critics saying he has “the fingers of an angel,” and his natural, passionate on-stage charisma made him beloved among music fans around the world.
In 2013, the 140th anniversary of the birth of the Russian pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, in order to show his profound respect for this great musician Chen embarked on a world tour of recitals entitled “Listen: "Total Rachmaninoff.” The tour began in his motherland Taiwan, and from there went on to Beijing, New York, and elsewhere.
“This was not something you could describe as ‘fun,’” says Chen. The first night he performed three pieces, and had to change shirts three times, because he was soaked through with sweat after each composition.
In the process of performing works by Rachmaninoff, Rueibin Chen has re-experienced that first challenging and incredible journey to another land when he was 13, and that moment at age 16 when he dazzled the entire audience in Italy during the Rachmaninoff Piano Competition.
