Monica Chew is an Oakland pianist. In 2017 she released her first solo album, Tender and Strange, featuring works by Bartók, Janáček, Messiaen, Takemitsu, and Scriabin. A “gifted player with an affinity for deeply sensitive expression” (Whole Note, June/July/August 2018), her playing is “wonderfully delicate, like tissue” (International Pianist, July/August 2018). She started composing in 2017 and couldn’t be happier about it. She premiered her first songs for soprano and piano in 2018 and completed her first commission for Left Coast Chamber Ensemble’s Intersection 2019 workshop. She loves playing chamber music and received a Zellerbach Family Foundation award for her work with Minsky Duo, which she co-founded in 2016. Prior to 2015, she neglected piano for nearly a decade to work as a principal software engineer on security and privacy at Mozilla and Google after receiving her Master of Music from SF Conservatory of Music and a PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley.

Here are some recitals I played since 2016.

Tender and Strange
Scriabin, Preludes, op. 16
Bartok, Etudes, op. 18
Janacek, In the Mists
Takemitsu, Rain Tree Sketches
Messiaen, Le Baiser de l'Enfant-Jesus
Scriabin, Piano Sonata no. 4

Schumann Storytime
Robert Schumann, Gesaenge der Fruehe, op. 133
Clara Schumann, Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, op. 20
Brahms, Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, op. 9
Robert Schumann, Ghost Variations, op. posth

Fugue This!
J. S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue No. 9 in E Major, BWV 878
Bach, Prelude and Fugue No. 4 in C-sharp Minor, BWV 849
W. A. Mozart, Fantasy and Fugue in C Major, K. 394
Clara Schumann, Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Major, Op. 16 No. 2
C. Schumann, Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, Op. 16 No. 1
Dmitri Shostakovich, Prelude and Fugue in D-flat Major, Op. 87 No. 15
Shostakovich, Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Minor, Op. 87 No. 16
Nikolai Kapustin, Prelude and Fugue in C Major and E minor, Op. 82, no 1 an 10