BIOGRAPHY
“It is always a personal thrill to find a ‘fresh voice’ within the jazz continuum. A Bu is a highly creative and accomplished jazz pianist who is also a gifted composer. I regard him as a promising young jazz lion who has a brilliant career ahead of him and will surely be talked about for many years to come”
– Michel Camilo, GRAMMY® Award-Winning Pianist
Born in Beijing, A Bu is the First Prize and Audience Choice winner of the Montreux Jazz Solo Piano Competition (2015 edition). A Bu started playing the piano at age 4 and had studied under Chinese piano pedagogues including Shigu Zhang, Huiqiao Bao, and Mingsun Zhou. Later at age 9, he was admitted to Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music as a classical piano student under the class of Professor Zhiwei Zhang.
While receiving classical training, A Bu started taking jazz and improvisation lessons with Chinese jazz pianist Hongwei Kong (aka Golden Buddha). Meanwhile, he began to attend jam sessions in Beijing's jazz scene and made his debut jazz performance at the Beijing Nine Gates International Jazz Festival in 2012.
At age 13, A Bu was invited by jazz pianist Chick Corea to perform a duet at Corea's solo piano concert in Shanghai, China during the annual Shanghai JZ Festival. The same year, his first studio album 88 Tones of Black and White, produced and released by Sennheiser media was released.
Across the continuum of classical and jazz, A Bu has collaborated with many artists such as Antonio Hart, Tom Kennedy, Till Brönner, Igor Butman, James Morrison, Dave Glasser, Drew Gress, Larry Grenadier, Eric Harland, and with pianist
In collaboration with pianist Hélène Mercier on the finale concert of the recent Herbie Hancock Jazz Piano Competition (October 2023).
As a soloist, A Bu has performed with many orchestras including the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Fabrice Bollon), Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Jazz Orchestra (conducted by Pavel Ovchinnikov), Ningbo Symphony Orchestra, Nanchang Symphony Orchestra, Chengdu Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Ji Yu), Suzhou Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Tsung Yeh), and Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur (under the baton of Maestro Mikhail Pletnev).
A Bu's newest CD release New Memories (WERGO 740 52), a joint project of German label WERGO and China's NCPA Classics was released in 2022. The album features his performance of Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin's popular Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 40, Variations Op. 41 and A Bu's original compositions Fantasie: Sleeping in a Dream, Op. 7 and Piano Sonata No. 1 "Pinus", a homage piece he wrote in memory of Kapustin.
As an advocate of Kapustin’s music, A Bu became acquainted with Kapustin in 2014 and remained friends with the composer until Kapustin’s passing in July 2020. A Bu premiered many of the composer’s works (Big Band Sounds, Op. 10 [big band + strings version], Nocturne, Op. 16, Minuet, Op. 21) and served as the editor of the first Chinese edition of Kapustin’s piano music, published by the Shanghai Publishing House.
In September 2022, together with the musicians from the Mannes School of Music and the College of Performing Arts of The New School, A Bu gave the New York Premiere of Kapustin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 14 at the opening concert of the Mannes Sounds Festival 2022-2023 Season.
A Bu graduated from the Juilliard School (B.M. in piano performance) under the guidance of pianist-pedagogue Hung-Kuan Chen. He later earned a double-major degrees at the Mannes School of Music (The New School), where he studied under renowned American composer Lowell Liebermann and the Chair of Mannes piano department, Bulgarian pianist Pavlina Dokovska.
A Bu has performed at Foundation Louis Vuitton, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, FAZIOLI Concert Hall, Gran Teatro de La Habana, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, American Yacht Club (Rye), New York Yacht Club, National Center of Performing Arts (Beijing), Forbidden City Concert Hall, Shanghai Concert Hall, the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York, Beijing, Shanghai and at music festivals such as the Umbria Jazz Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival, Jazz en Tête Festival, Jazz à Vienne, Ruhr Piano Festival, Internationale Musikfestspiele Saar, Rheingau Musik Festival, Piano Extravaganza Festival (Sofia), Shanghai JZ Festival, and others.