Award-winning Chinese pianist Peng Lin is the First Prize winner of the 2023 Massarosa International Piano Competition, and a nominee for the 2026 German Piano Award. She made her New York Lincoln Center debut in 2015 performing Mozart Concerto K. 482 in Alice Tully Hall with the Juilliard Orchestra under Peter Oundjian. A laureate of numerous competitions, Peng has received the Piotr Anderszewski Prize at the Vigo International Piano Competition, the Bach Prize at Rina Sala Gallo International Piano Competition, First Prize at the Rhodes International Piano Competition, and Third Prize at the Antwerp International Piano Competition. 

               She has performed on the international stages such as Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Weill Hall, Muziekgebouw and Shanghai Concert Hall. Recent orchestral collaborations include Bartók’s Concerto No. 3 and Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 with the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra, Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra, and Kunming International Philharmonic Orchestra. She has appeared at the Aspen Music Festival, Banff Summer Arts Festival, Capraia Music Festival, Lieven Piano Foundation Masterclasses, Taos Chamber Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, as well as NPR and WQXR New York classical radio.

Born in Kulangsu (Gulangyu), China’s ‘piano island’, Peng Lin made her orchestral debut at age nine performing Mozart Concerto K. 467. Before relocating to New York City on a full scholarship to attend the Juilliard School Pre-College, She had already won five top prizes in Chinese national piano competitions. She earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees at the Juilliard School under Yoheved Kaplinsky and Hung-Kuan Chen, followed by a Master of Musical Arts from the Yale School of Music in 2020, studying with Hung-Kuan Chen and the late Peter Serkin. In 2021, she completed an Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music, London, under Dmitri Alexeev and Ian Jones. Most recently, she graduated with the highest distinction from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome in July 2024 under Benedetto Lupo, becoming the only piano candidate for the 2025 Italian Presidential Prize Premio Sinopoli. 

               Peng Lin has a deep commitment to contemporary music from both Eastern and Western traditions, actively collaborating with living composers and bringing new works to international audiences. She has given several UK premieres of Gianluca Cascioli Études for Piano. Among her upcoming projects is the first published recording of Piano Concerto ‘Gulangyu’, a work dedicated to her hometown by An-lun Huang. She previously premiered Huang’s piano transcription of the orchestral suite Dream of Dunhuang and recorded Shi-guang Cui’s Shandong Folk Suite, further exploring musical narratives rooted in Chinese cultural heritage. She also gave the western hemisphere premier to a clarinet trio ‘Chaconne Arirang’ by Chinese composer Juan Zhou at the Juilliard Focus! Festival. 

               Other notable premieres include Nocturne: Spheres Align by Anteo Fabris, which received Rena Greenwald Memorial Prize at Yale University. An enthusiastic chamber musician, Peng Lin has also participated in premieres of new works for small ensembles in the New Music New Haven series. Open to experimental and interdisciplinary approaches, she incorporates improvisation into her artistic practice in both solo and collaborative settings, including an improvisation based on the open-score work Gathering by Rajna Swaminathan. 

               Beyond the modern piano practice, Peng Lin has studied historical keyboards, including harpsichord and virginal with Peter Sykes, clavichord with Masayuki Maki, and fortepiano with Audrey Axinn. Her performance of Schubert’s Sonata D. 960 on a Broadwood fortepiano was broadcast on WIOX Radio, New York. She recently recorded Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on a replica of Beethoven’s fortepiano made by Gert Hecher, and Franck Prelude, Choral et Fugue recorded on a restored 1866 Pleyel fortepiano from Hecher’s collection.

Alongside performing and recording, Peng Lin has taught undergraduate and graduate piano students at The Juilliard School and Yale University. She has served as a jury member for China’s Sterinbourgh Cup National Piano Competition and Boya National Piano Competition. Her students have won top prizes in UK competitions and prestigious music scholarships.