Fiona Siang Yun SZE-LORRAIN

Musician, Dramatist, Writer, Literary Translator

Considered among one of the best from her generation, Fiona Siang Yun Sze, as harpist (guzheng/Chinese zither) and pianist, made her performance debut at age 9 in Singapore's Victoria Concert Hall. During her musical career, she has played at Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Merkins Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, World Music Hall of Wesleyan University, Maison des cultures du monde, Maison des racines du monde, Zuiderspershuis Wereldculturen centrum, Rasa Wereldculturen centrum etc.

Sze has traveled on international tours to Sydney, Melbourne, Budapest, Venice, Milan, London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam, Cologne, Munich, Leipzig, Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Beijing, Manila, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Seoul. Her skills, artistic interpretation and passion revealed during her performances have won her praises from audiences including Princess Diana, Presidents François Mitterrand, Bill Clinton and Ong Teng Cheong, Deng Xiaoping, Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher, Suharto, and Goh Chok Tong, as well as Emperor Hirohito.

A guzheng/zither solo concertist since 1990, she has appeared on television in New York (Times Warner Cable), Singapore (Singapore Broadcasting Corporation) and Japan (FUJI Television). Recordings of her music have also been released on radio stations such as France Culture, Radio 938, etc.

Three-time laureate of Youth Music Festival and Asian Cup (guzheng performance), Sze studied mainly with world renowned zheng masters, Zhang Yan and Wang Changyuan. In addition to her solo guzheng/zither performances, she has had taken residencies with ensembles such as New York Chinese Music Ensemble, IIIZ+Music Ensemble, East Coast Zheng Ensemble, Wang Changyuan Zheng Ensemble, etc.

Sze began formal piano education in 1984. She attended the Associated Board of Royal School of Music (London) and Ecole Normale de la Musique-Cortot (Paris), studying under the mentorship of Marie-Antoinette Pictet and Tadic Dusan. Her current piano playing combines Russian aesthetics with French techniques. In recent years, she has been an active pianist accompanist for several chamber music ensembles performing throughout France.

She received her university education as a scholar at Columbia University (B.A.: Drama/Theatre Arts, East Asian Studies & French), New York University (M.A.: Performance Studies) and Paris IV-Sorbonne (DEA: French & Comparative Literature). She continues her PhD in Paris IV-Sorbonne, focusing on Beckett's dramatic literature. She now works as a doctorate research associate at Centre de recherche sur l'histoire du théâtre, writing also on the works and paintings of Gao Xingjian.

A writer and dramatist, Sze's articles, poems, short stories, and plays have appeared in Journal of Asian Cinema, Times Sunday Supplement, Vortex, Barnard Theater Journal, Columbia Journal, Lianhe Zaobao, The Straits Times, Asiaweek, Contemporary Arts, Lifestyle, Yanhuang Chinese Culture and TODAY. As a literary translator, she has also translated (French-English-Chinese) selected plays and essays by Samuel Beckett, Maurice Maeterlinck and Gertrude Stein. Her forthcoming publications include a bilingual French-English translation of Maurice Maeterlinck's plays and Fragments from America (Foreign Translators Press). She is currently working on a collection of poetry and editing The Silhouette/Shadow: Cinematic Art of Gao Xingjian.

As an actress and director, Sze has worked in more than 30 films and theatre productions since 1990. Film and TV acting credits include: Dreams, Dream of Red Chamber, The Story of Three Soong Sisters, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Recent theatre credits include Memory Mist (New York), Celestina (New York), The Blood Wedding (New York) etc. She is currently Artistic Director of the international performing arts festival, Initiation International held in Southeast Asia.

Selected awards and scholarships that Sze has received include the All-Asian Star Performance Award, International Asian Heritage Award, New PEN-VOICE Prize, Youth Music Festival Award, Shaw Foundation Scholarship, etc.

In January 2004, Division of Sheng Productions (The Asian New Yorker, Time Warner Cable) in New York filmed and released a feature-length documentary that showcases Sze's artistic career, Fiona Sze: Between two cultures (Fiona Sze: Entre deux cultures).

Sze-Lorrain now lives in Paris, France.