Fiona Siang Yun Sze-Lorrain
Musician, Writer, Literary Translator
Considered among one of the best from her generation, Fiona Siang Yun Sze, as harpist (guzheng/Chinese zither), 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, UNESCO, 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, Shanghai, 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 zheng solo concertist since 1990, she has appeared on television in New York, Singapore and Japan. Recordings of her music have also been released on radio stations such as France Culture, Radio 938, etc. Her CD, In One Take (with Guo Gan, erhu) was released in France in 2010.
Three-time laureate of Asian Cup, Sze studied mainly with world renowned zheng masters, Zhang Yan and Wang Changyuan. In addition to her solo zheng erformances, she has had taken residencies with ensembles such as New York Chinese Music Ensemble, IIIZ+ Music Ensemble, Wang Changyuan Zheng Ensemble, etc.
She received her university education as a scholar at Columbia University, New York University and Paris IV-Sorbonne, where she had also obtained a PhD in French.
Sze-Lorrain writes and translates in English, French and Chinese. Her poems, essays and plays have appeared (sometimes under the nom-de-plume, Greta Aart) in various international literary journals and newspapers. She has translated writings by Samuel Beckett, Ghérasim Luca, Maurice Maeterlinck, Gertrude Stein, Gao Xingjian, Bai Hua, Yu Xiang, Lan Lan, Yang Zi, Yang Jian, Yi Lu, etc. With Gao Xingjian, she has co-authored Silhouette/Shadow: Cinematic Art of Gao Xingjian (Contours, 2007). She also co-creates and co-edits Cerise Press. Her first collection of poetry, Water the Moon was published by Marick Press in 2010.
Selected awards and scholarships that Sze has received include the All-Asian Star Performance Award, International Asian Heritage Award, New PEN-VOICE Prize, International 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 her artistic career, Fiona Sze: Between two cultures (Fiona Sze: Entre deux cultures).
Sze-Lorrain lives in Paris, France.