Cello & Piano Lessons with Shu-Wei Tseng
Known for her exceptional technique, musicality and her programme versatility, Taiwanese-British musician Shu-Wei Tseng has won numerous prizes on both piano and cello. Concert performances have taken her across the UK, Europe, Russia, USA, and the Far East in major concert halls such as London‘s South Bank Purcell Room, Barbican Hall, St. John's Smith's Square, St.Martin-In-the-Fields, St James's Piccadilly, the Wigmore Hall, and the Carnegie Hall in New York City, USA. Recent performances include visits to Australia, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Thailand and Russia.
Besides performing as a soloist, Shu-Wei specialises in Strings and Keyboard-related chamber music, in sonata partnerships, piano trios, piano quartets, and quintets, as either a cellist or pianist.
Her playing has been described as radiating a "passionate, energetic, researched, and committed personality with a powerful, fluid and beyond reproach technique" and producing "characters, colours, dynamics …. seldom heard in concerts".
Shu-Wei arrived in the UK shortly after winning first and second prizes at the National Taiwan competitions on the cello and piano where she received double scholarships to study at the Wells Cathedral School. She went on to London’s Royal Academy of Music to complete her Bachelors and Master’s degree, as well as her Licentiate (LRAM) on both cello and piano. In 2007, Shu-Wei left for America to pursue a fully funded Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder where she held a Research Assistantship and lectureships on the piano and cello, during which she received various performance and research prizes for her research in the ensemble issues between strings and keyboard instruments in sonata partnerships. Upon her DMA completion in 2010, Shu-Wei started teaching in Germany and has joined the faculty of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in the United Kingdom since September 2010.
She has served as a juror member for competitions and given workshops or masterclasses in UK, Central Europe, Russia, America, and the Far East, including the recent 7th International Mozart Competition held in Bangkok, Thailand in Summer 2017. An avid educator, Shu-Wei has held teaching positions at the Royal institutions of the United Kingdom, The Yehudi Menuhin School, City of London School for Girls, Chamber Music course leadership at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Head of Keyboard and Strings, Teacher and Director of Music positions. She has also held music residencies and fellowships working with beginners up to taught Masters degree, conducting lessons in English, Mandarin and German. Shu-Wei holds a PGCE in Secondary Music, as well as a MSc. in Psychology alongside her other academic credentials.
Since 2016, Shu-Wei has represented the Taipei Consulate and Taiwan Ministry of Culture in the UK on various occasions, such as being the first featured musician at the Taiwan Cultural Salon music series, as well as the first artist to represent Taiwan for the Embassy and Cultural Institute Series at the St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on both of her instruments. In 2019, Shu-Wei gave an Australian solo debut on her two instruments and opened the 75th D-Day Commemoration Concert at the Notre Dame de Coutances Cathedral.
Early 2023 highlight included solo piano and chamber music appearance at the award-winning New York City Ballet principal Tiler Peck's sold-out European debut week, Turn It Out with Tiler Peck & Friends, at London's Sadlers Wells Theatre in March, followed by performances on her two instruments in the following week in New York at a fundraising concert. In September 2023, she apeared as a guest artist on both instruments at the special event, celebrating Vietnam-UK 50th year diplomatic relationship.
Since arriving in New York in November, Shu-Wei has appeared as a solo cellist at the Consulate General of Poland in New York as part of the XXV International Chopin and Friends Festival's Final Promenade, and the National Opera Center as a pianist.