Eric Lu won first prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2018 at the age of 20. The following year, he signed an exclusive contract with Warner Classics, and has since collaborated with some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras and been presented in major recital venues. Recent and forthcoming orchestral collaborations include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Stockholm Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Orchestre National de Lille, and Shanghai Symphony at the BBC Proms, among others.
Conductors with which Lu has collaborated include Riccardo Muti, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Ryan Bancroft, Marin Alsop, Duncan Ward, Vasily Petrenko, Edward Gardner, Sir Mark Elder, Thomas Dausgaard, Ruth Reinhardt, Earl Lee, Kerem Hasan, Nuno Coehlo, Dinis Sousa, and Martin Frӧst. Active as a recitalist, he has performed on countless stages, including the Köln Philharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Davies Hall in San Francisco, BOZAR Brussels, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the 92nd Street Y, Aspen Music Festival, Seoul Arts Centre, Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, and Sala São Paulo. In 2025, he will appear in recital for the seventh consecutive year at Wigmore Hall, London. He also has been invited for the seventh time to the Chopin and His Europe Festival in Warsaw, and made his debut at Festival de La Roque-d’Anthéron.
Lu’s third album on Warner Classics was released in December 2022, featuring the Schubert sonatas D. 959 and 784. It was met with critical acclaim worldwide, receiving BBC Music Magazine’s Instrumental Choice with a review stating, “Lu’s place among today’s Schubertians is confirmed.” His previous album of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, op. 28, and Schumann’s Geistervariationen was hailed as “truly magical” by International Piano. He will release a new album of the complete Schubert impromptus on Warner Classics in early 2026.
Born in Massachusetts in 1997, Lu first came to international attention as a laureate of the 2015 Chopin International Competition in Warsaw at just 17 years old. He was also awarded the International German Piano Award in 2017 and the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2021. Lu was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2019 to 2022. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, having studied with Robert McDonald and Jonathan Biss. He was also a pupil of Dang Thai Son.
