![]() Still, if Chen is at a crossroads, he hasn’t made any major life decisions about his future in the world of classical music. Let’s try that.” Piano prodigy Kevin Chen at the age of 10, smiles after rehearsing in the Mount Royal University’s new Bella Concert Hall. I thought: Well, that’s an interesting entree. Up to (the age of) 32 with no lower age limits. This was the first one, though, that was open to adults. “These are major competitions for people under 18,” says Engle, who has taught Chen for nearly four years. Marilyn Engle, Chen’s piano teacher and a professor at the University of Calgary, says he began to shine in international competitions in 2013 although, until now, most of them were geared toward younger musicians. ![]() In 2019, he took home the win at the e-Piano Junior Competition, an international event held in Minneapolis for classical pianists aged 17 and under.īut the win in Budapest seems to put him at a crossroads and has him poised to emerge from the realm of child prodigy and into a much larger classical music world. The CBC named him among the “Top 30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30” in 2013 when he was 10. That was when he was awarded a top prize at the Canadian Music Competition in the seven-year-old category. It was just the latest triumph for the musician and composer, who has been winning competitions and earning attention since he was seven years old. Whatever the case, he wowed the audience and the judges last weekend, besting 22 competitors from around the world. ![]() Given the technical difficulty of performing Liszt’s compositions, Chen’s ability to block out distractions while on stage was probably helpful. Chen presumably entered that zone last weekend in Budapest, when he became the youngest musician in history to win the prestigious Frank Liszt International Competition. ![]()
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