Finding the Genuine

Hastings is different from other places because it’s a smaller town and the competition is a major event for the community. Many people told me quite openly that they had barely ever been to a classical concert, or that this was a completely new experience. Their reactions were very genuine—they would simply say whether they liked something or not. There’s something very honest in that. 

In a big city, the audience may be more experienced, but in a smaller place you feel that the whole town has a stake in making the competition happen. That creates a kind of warmth and involvement that I really appreciated.

You mentioned staying in the countryside. Did the setting affect your experience?

Yes, in a way. I had expected typical English February weather—cold, gray, maybe rain. But when I arrived, it was around 23 degrees and felt like the south of France. There are palm trees on the beach in Hastings, so visually it also looked that way. 

Quite a few of the days I played were sunny, which was a really nice psychological boost. Between the weather, the sea and the countryside around my host family’s house, it created a very welcoming atmosphere in what could otherwise have been a rather stressful period.

How far in advance did you start preparing, and how do you choose repertoire for a competition like this?

The preparation in earnest started in the latter half of last summer, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m quite hesitant to put completely new pieces into a competition program. Some risks are necessary, but I prefer to bring works that have been living with me for some time. 

Several of the solo pieces have been maturing for years and changed a lot as I prepared them specifically for Hastings. Prokofiev’s Second Concerto, which I played in the final, is a good example. I had started it a long time ago, but I’d never really brought it fully to performance level until this competition. So a lot of it was “relearning” rather than learning from scratch. 

Everyone’s approach is different. Some people treat it very much as a “competition,” others as just another performance. I do better when I think of it as a performance—trying to shape a meaningful musical arc—while still recognizing that a 35-minute solo round with a commissioned piece is not the same as a full-length recital. You have to structure that 35 minutes differently from a one-hour or 90-minute program.

Do you feel differently about preparing concertos versus solo programs?

They’re different challenges. In some ways, a concerto can feel slightly easier to prepare, not in terms of difficulty, but because it’s closer to a “normal” performance situation: full work, orchestra, audience, you’re not thinking about time limits in the same way as in a competition round. 

At the same time, I love playing solo because you are responsible for everything. You control every aspect of the performance: pacing, sound, timing, the narrative of the whole evening. If something goes wrong, it’s your responsibility, but that also means you have the tools to fix it. There’s a strange comfort in knowing that everything you need is in the score and in your own hands.

You’ve already done several major competitions. How do you deal with pressure and nerves?

Pressure definitely exists; it never really goes away. I’ve now taken three big competitions, two of them in fairly quick succession in 2024, and I found that each one became a kind of catalyst. After each competition I felt I had changed a lot as a musician in a short time. 

There was a period when I struggled quite a bit with memory. Looking back, my mindset was in the wrong place: I was worrying too much about playing everything correctly, instead of focusing on the music itself. My teachers reminded me that technique—no matter how advanced—exists to serve the music. When your attention shifts away from that, all kinds of problems appear. 

Now I try to put my energy into playing with imagination and spirit, into creating something special in that moment. If I can really commit to that in practice and on stage, it starts to overshadow the more material concerns. It’s not foolproof, of course, but it’s a direction. 

And it’s also personal. I know people who have decided they simply don’t want to do solo competitions anymore, and that’s completely fine. In my case, I seem to thrive under competition conditions, so I’m willing to work with that pressure instead of fighting it.

Can you shut out the cameras and media attention that come with big competitions?
I can’t block it out completely. With something like the Chopin Competition, where there are cameras everywhere and interviews the moment you leave the stage, of course you feel it. 

What I try to do is use a kind of mental trick: to tell myself that I don’t care about the cameras or the streaming, even if deep down I know they’re there. Over the past year and a half I’ve found ways—again, not perfect—to get into a state where it’s mostly just “music, music, music.” You focus on imagination, sound, color, and you stop thinking about how you look on camera. 

The first time someone interviewed me immediately after I played, my reaction was, “Why now?” You’re exhausted, sweating, full of adrenaline, and someone asks how you feel. I realized the only way to handle that is to be genuine—if you’re tired, be tired; if you’re happy, be happy; if you’re dissatisfied, don’t pretend otherwise. As long as I maintain my own artistic dignity and beliefs while answering, it’s okay.

How do you see social media in all of this? Is it important for you as a young pianist today?

I should probably be better at it than I am. I barely post, and I haven’t yet found the balance between my work—the hours in the practice room—and maintaining a social media presence. I’m hoping the career training that Hastings offers will also touch on this and help a bit. 

In general, I think social media can be useful, but for me the underlying question is always: what is your relationship to the art you’re pursuing? Videos, photos, signatures, sharing clips online—there is nothing inherently wrong with any of that. The problem is only when it becomes disconnected from genuine engagement with the music. 

Right after Hastings, you played at Wigmore Hall. How was that?

I had never played in a hall like Wigmore before. The most amazing thing about it is that you can play as quietly as you want; as long as you know the sound and color you’re aiming for, the hall carries it. That encouraged me to push how intimate the sound could be and to experiment a bit. 

Of course I was nervous—it’s Wigmore, after all—but for a lunchtime concert the turnout was very good, which was encouraging. Because of my schedule, I flew in from New York the day before and played the next day, so it all happened very fast. In a strange way, that helped: there wasn’t time to overthink the prestige of the hall. You’re just on stage, playing, with this wonderful acoustic that lets you try things you can’t try everywhere.

What kinds of engagements has Hastings brought you, and what’s coming up?

We’re planning a tour in the south of the UK in October, and there is another UK project penciled in for next July. There may be additional concerts in between; those are still being discussed. Right now a lot of my focus is on preparing enough repertoire and programs for these upcoming projects. 

The nice thing about a competition like Hastings is that, beyond the immediate result, it opens doors over a period of time. So some opportunities are already fixed, and others will appear gradually.

You mentioned Leeds and possibly returning there. How do you look at the next few years of competitions?

Leeds was my first big competition—back then I was about 20 or 21, and it felt a bit like fumbling around in the dark. I didn’t fully know yet what I wanted artistically. If I return, which I would like to, I think I can go with more assurance about what I want to play and how I want to play it. 

I don’t have a special preference for the UK; it’s more that Leeds happened to be the first major event that fit my timing. Going forward, I’m also looking at other competitions, possibly the Géza Anda Competition, and then of course there are places like Sydney, Geneva, Chopin—depending on timing and where I am in my development. 

You grew up in Canada with family roots in China. What is your relationship with Asia at the moment?
Right now it’s mostly familial. My family is from Guangzhou, in the south of China. I visited this spring for the first time in almost ten years, and a lot of things felt unfamiliar—the city has changed so much. 

In terms of career, I would definitely like to perform more in Asia in the future. But from what I’ve seen, the scene there—especially in music education and for young pianists—is extremely saturated. In some ways it can be harder to build a profile if you’re based entirely there, compared with establishing yourself elsewhere and then returning as a guest. For now my studies and most of my work are in North America and Europe, but I hope the Asian side will grow naturally over time.

If you had to sum up what makes Hastings special for you, what would you say?

I would say it’s the community. Even as the competition grows rapidly in size and prestige, the fact that it takes place in a small town means the community has to be very tightly knit to make it work. There’s no music university providing endless practice rooms, for example—finding pianos for dozens of pianists is already a major operation. 

The people involved—organizers, volunteers, hosts, audience members—are doing it out of genuine dedication and love for music. That warmth and authenticity are felt by the competitors. For me, that’s what makes Hastings stand out and what I’ll remember most.

Canadian pianist Ryan Zhu is the First Prize winner of the 2026 Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition. He was a semi-finalist at the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition, where he received the G. Henle Verlag Prize, and a semi-finalist at the 2024 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition. Ryan is currently pursuing his Master of Music degree under Boris Berman at the Yale School of Music. He previously studied with Robert McDonald, Stephen Hough, Mira Yevtich, Michelle Mares, Kenneth Broadway and Ralph Markham, and has appeared on numerous concert stages in North America, Europe and Asia.

©WFIMC 2026/FR