© Andrej Grilc
BRYAN CHENG
/ CELLO
BRYAN CHENG
Canadian-born, Berlin-based cellist Bryan Cheng has established himself as one of the leading musicians of his generation, acclaimed for both the “incredible intensity and urgency” (Tagesspiegel) and “otherworldly intimacy” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) of his playing. He is the only prize-winner of both the Queen Elisabeth and Geneva International Music Competitions in the last 40 years.
Recent and forthcoming highlights include debuts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (with Sir András Schiff), Iceland Symphony Orchestra (with Bar Avni), hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt (with Erina Yashima), NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover and Musikkollegium Winterthur (both with Michael Sanderling), a return to DSO Berlin (with Catherine Larsen-Maguire) as well as his debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava and Daniel Raiskin.
An advocate of new and contemporary music, Bryan gave the world premiere of Samy Moussa's Ring, (a piece written for him and co-commissioned by the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra), with the National Arts Centre Orchestra under Teddy Abrams, and performs Mason Bates' Cello Concerto with orchestras across the United States.
Equally passionate about chamber music, Bryan recently returned to Carnegie Hall with Kirill Gerstein and colleagues from the Kronberg Academy, collaborated with Karen Gomyo at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, and appears regularly at leading festivals including Verbier, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein, Heidelberger Frühling and Beethovenfest Bonn.
Bryan is the co-founder of two chamber ensembles: Cheng² Duo with his sister Silvie, with whom he tours regularly throughout Canada and the United States and will make an Irish debut tour in the 2026/27 season, and CelloFellos with Leonard Disselhorst, presenting imaginative programmes ranging from Balkan folk to tango. He also returns to Wigmore Hall with frequent collaborators, the vision string quartet, performing the Schubert quintet from memory.
Bryan has released three critically acclaimed albums on the German label audite: Russian Legends (2019), Violonchelo del fuego (2018), and Violoncelle français (2016). His latest recital album, Portrait (2023), released on Centrediscs and featuring commissioned works and his own arrangements by composers of diverse Asian heritage, was nominated for two JUNO Awards.
Bryan is the first cellist to receive the Prix Yves Paternot, awarded to the Verbier Festival Academy’s most promising and accomplished musician, and the 2023 recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts' Virginia Parker Prize, Canada's highest honour for young classical musicians. A graduate of the Kronberg Academy and Universität der Künste Berlin, he plays a Montagnana-model cello made in 2025 by Mira Gruszow and Gideon Baumblatt.
Canada's Council for the Arts'
Virginia Parker Prize 2023
Prize Winner
Queen Elisabeth Competition
Concours de Genève
Paulo Competition
CONTACT
Dacian Predan-Hallabrin
dacian@predan-hallabrin.com
REPRESENTATION
Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Rep., Greece, Rep. of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey
Partner managers:
IMG Artists
VIDEOS
Elgar - Cellokonzert | Bryan Cheng | Michael Sanderling | NDR Radiophilharmonie
Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 119 (II) | Bryan Cheng
Saint-Saëns: 1. Cellokonzert ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Bryan Cheng ∙ Erina Yashima
Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 119 (I) | Bryan Cheng
Glasunow: Sérénade espagnole ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Bryan Cheng ∙ Erina Yashima
Dvořák Concerto n. 2 in B minor op. 104 B 191| Bryan Cheng - Queen Elisabeth Competition 2022
El cant dels ocells (Song of the Birds) | Bryan Cheng | National Youth Orchestra of Canada
PHOTOS
PRESS
Haydn's Cello Concerto in C major with the Prague Philharmonia and Oscar Jockel
Timo Lechner, Sonntagsblatt, May 2025
"In Haydn's Cello Concerto in C major, which Bryan Cheng performed as soloist in this concert, the world of Viennese Classicism shaped by Mozart and Haydn comes to life. Cheng, wearing a striking golden-yellow blazer, was also a real eye-catcher that evening and shone during the cadenza of the piece, which turned into a brief but wild improvisation. Thunderous applause at the end. The young musician even added a short encore."
Elgar's Cello Concerto with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mark Rees, Western Mail, April 2025
"Canadian cellist Bryan Cheng could teach foreign diplomats a thing or two about making an instant positive impression....This was followed by Cheng, who brought the introspection of Elgar´s Cello Concerto to the fore. The BBC NOW musicians provided sensitive accompaniment, allowing the dialogue between soloist and orchestra to unfold with natural fluidity....He then further endeared to the locals with an impromptu encore, something seemingly prepared on the spot: a fusion of the traditional Welsh lullaby Suo Gân with Canadian bluegrass."
Elgar's Cello Concerto with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra under Chelsea Tipton
Timothy Lindeman, Cultural Voice of North Carolina, March 2025
"Having garnered some of the most prestigious awards the planet has to offer, the musician, who is not quite 30, played the four-movement Elgar Concerto with the depth and maturity of an older artist, but with all the flair and showmanship of his youth...The attributes of Cheng are numerous: extreme sensitivity to the subtle nuances of the score, amazingly soft pianissimos that had this listener leaning forward to make sure he was still playing, to full-blown passionate out-pourings of emotion. He is also a performer who is fun to watch. Often playing off the first violinists in kind of a back-and-forth competition, his smiles showed his delight in this opportunity to share the music with the audience (and orchestra). Throughout, Tipton kept the orchestra perfectly in sync with the soloist, and the audience was obviously taken with this young man’s musicality.
As the applause died down, Cheng explained that he not only loved classical music but also music from other genres. He proceeded to perform a wildly careening piece, “Julie-O” by Mark Summer, which included some of the fastest plucking I have ever heard on a cello as well as what would be called bluegrass “fiddling,” (but, of course, it was on the cello). The whole piece was a delight and provided a perspective on Cheng’s breadth of interest."
Glazunov Minstrel's Song & Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations with the Orchestre Métropolitain and Louis Langrée
Christophe Huss, Le Devoir, January 2025
We have immense admiration for this Ottawa-born cellist, trained in Montreal, for his musical finesse and the subtle sensitivity with which he approaches music. Cheng and Langrée truly took advantage of the Maison symphonique and its silent audience to explore extreme nuances…both artist and instrument delivered magical moments.
"Don Quixote" with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Raiskin
Ivan Marton, klasikaplus.com, October 2023
After the intermission, the symphonic poem "Don Quixote," Op. 35, an iconic orchestral work by Richard Strauss inspired by the legendary chivalric novel by M. de Cervantes, was performed...the soloist was the twenty-six-year-old Canadian instrumentalist Bryan Cheng, a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 2017 and currently a guest artist with many significant orchestras. He handled his part with remarkable elegance. It was a true pleasure to watch his long, melodically arched passages, especially in the fifth variation, " The knight's vigil," and in the playful sixth variation, " The Meeting with Dulcinea
Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No.2 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
under Alpesh Chauhan at the Berliner Philharmonie
Schlatz, Opern- & Konzertkritik Berlin, June 2023
The 2nd Cello Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns from 1902, which sounds so seductively light, casual and ingenious and is rightly finally finding its way into concert halls, features the young Canadian Bryan Cheng, whose slender and cultivated tone - flexible, firm, sonorous - should not only delight Saint-Saëns fans like me. Cheng performs the solo part with virtuosity, meandering between short tutti blocks. In the intervening Andante sostenuto, the gifted youngster plays so delicately sensitive and blissfully cantabile that every piano sounds wonderfully nuanced
Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with pianist Angela Hewitt, violinist Blake Pouliot, and conductor Laurence Equilbey leading the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Christophe Huss, Le Devoir (Montréal), November 2022
A great cellist: What was very good about the Pouliot-Cheng-Hewitt trio is that, as soon as Bryan Cheng spoke, we were reassured, because this interpretation was placed in the perspective of dialogue (the almost mischievous playing between Pouliot and Cheng) and reason...In this trio we really have to mention Bryan Cheng, the one who set the tone. The more we hear this cellist, the more we like this simplicity, this art of not forcing anything. And the 1699 Stradivarius cello lent to him by the Canimex Foun- dation is a marvel.
Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with pianist Angela Hewitt, violinist Blake Pouliot, and conductor Laurence Equilbey leading the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Ian Cochrane, Bachtrack.com, November 2022
the evening’s three soloists brought phenomenal energy and commitment to the Triple Concerto. Cheng’s passionate lyricism was a standout.
Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Brussels Philharmonic under Stéphane Denève
The Strad (UK), June 2022
Cheng shaped his performance with a constant sense of narrative, rising elatedly to match the first violin for a goosebump-inducing duet with the concertmaster to end the third movement [of the Dvorak Cello Concerto].
about Cheng’s performances at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Brussels
La Libre (Belgium), May 2022
In Brussels, he distinguished himself with powerful, solar and cultivated playing, enveloped in opulent sonorities.
about Cheng’s performances at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Brussels
La Soir (Belgium), May 2022
A full and elegant sound at the service of an easy and clear articulation, continuously attentive to the main line. Elegant, nuanced and gentle, an artist whose impulses always remain at the service of the true intention. Constant mastery, without pretentiousness, of technical demonstration
Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romand led by Georg Fritzsch
ARCHI Magazine (Italy), October 2021
The third to take the stage at Victoria Hall is 24-year-old Canadian Bryan Cheng...A beautiful performance, with a bit of late-romantic sentimentality and melancholy but no more than strictly necessary, without unnecessary flourishes and with very controlled dynamics. In the end he is the most applauded by the audience that fills the Victoria Hall.
Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No.2 with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Christophe Huss, Le Devoir (Montréal), August 2021
...he is a fine artist, distinguished, of great class...Bryan Cheng made a brilliant debut in the amphitheater.
"Don Quixote" with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Raiskin
Viera Polakovičová, Opera Slovakia Magazin, October 2023
Cheng's mastery lies in his perfect tone, which was evident even in pianissimo passages, and his instrument's captivating sound was present, even in collaboration with his fellow cellists, as the composer intended. The cello section, or a portion of it, is pulled into the phenomenal sound. Cheng makes the cello sing, and his expression is deep and suggestive. Like Don Quixote, he is bewildered and lost, but, along with the composer, he is kind to the story's main character. In dialogue with individual orchestra members and the other soloist, violist Martin Ruman, he communicates with artistic passion and understanding.
Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (hr-Sinfonieorchester) under the direction of Erina Yashima
Dirk Schauß, Online Merker, January 2025
Cheng combines technical perfection with a deeply felt musical expression that makes his playing special. In Camille Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Cheng revealed his outstanding skill. Even the dramatic opening of the solo cello captivated the audience. Cheng mastered the challenging double-stops and runs with impressive ease, creating a clear, powerful tone that effortlessly filled the room. The second part of the concerto, characterized by lyrical intimacy, showcased Cheng's extraordinary musicality. His phrasing was thoughtful and supported by a warm, velvety sound. Particularly impressive was the dialogue with the members of the hr-Sinfonieorchester, which formed the emotional core of this section. In the final part, Cheng excelled with devoted tone and precise articulation.
Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (hr-Sinfonieorchester) under the direction of Erina Yashima
Judith von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau, January 2025
As a virtuoso, the young Canadian Bryan Cheng is in demand, and he is equally lively in his performance, completely up to the challenge of the demanding 1st Cello Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns. Although the cellist has the opportunity to show off here, everything must still sound effortless and lyrical. One must be devilishly good on the cello, but it must not be noticeable. And he succeeds in doing so.
Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (hr-Sinfonieorchester) under the direction of Erina Yashima
Axel Zibulski, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Janaury 2025
The Canada-born soloist Bryan Cheng, who is currently enrolled in "Professional Studies" at the Kronberg Academy, refined the delicate and intricate passages of Camille Saint-Saëns' first Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 33, composed in 1872, and particularly showcased the work's otherworldly intimacy. He played the highly virtuosic sections of the condensed single-movement concerto in a manner that the French composer likely intended: naturally, almost casually, yet flawlessly executed.
Mason Bates' Cello Concerto with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Robert Moody
Harri Hautala, Aamulehti, November 2024
The dazzling Canadian cellist Bryan Cheng embraced Bates' music with astonishing naturalness, even mastering the use of plectrum effects. The overall performance was, depending on the listener, likely enchanting, mysterious, or refreshing. Or all of those things.
Cheng thanked the audience by playing an encore of the Catalan folk tune made famous by Pau Casals. Cheng emphasized, with a few words, the importance of the message of peace in "The Song of the Birds" in today’s restless world. He then created a deeply touching interpretation of the serenely beautiful melody on his cello.
Mason Bates' Cello Concerto with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Robert Moody
Jari Kallio, Adventures in Music, November 2024
Mastering the solo part with flying colors, Cheng’s vigorous take on the concerto was matched in equal measure by the orchestra and Moody, their collaboration yielding to a beautifully interlocked and intricately balanced outing. Cheng’s delicate encore, the cellist’s arrangement of the Catalan carol El cant dels ocells – made famous in the concert hall by the Pablo Casals version – presented the audience with a reflective afterthought, articulated with focused pulchritude.