Benny Yi-Bing Chu, Author at CelloBello

About Benny Yi-Bing Chu

Chu Yi-Bing was born in Beijing, China in 1966. His father Chu Yong-Ning and mother Wang Yao-Ling were both professors at the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) in Beijing, China.

In 1978, Chu Yi-Bing commenced studying cello with his father at the Middle School of the CCOM in Beijing, China. In 1984 after graduating from the CCOM, Chu Yi-Bing was accepted to Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique à Paris in France where he studied under the tutelage of Maurice Gendron.

In 1986 Chu Yi-Bing was prize winner at the 42nd Concours International d’Exécution Musicale in Geneva. He was the first Chinese cellist ever to win a prize in a major international Cello competition.

After Chu Yi-Bing graduated from the Conservatory in Paris with a Premier Prix in 1987, he served as principal cellist in Basel Symphony Orchestra, Switzerland. During his tenure between 1989-2004, Chu Yi-Bing was also guest principal cellist of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, Germany.

It was his principle cellist job that led him to start his conducting career. He has conducted Munich Symphony Orchestra, German Symphony Orchestra (Berlin), Duesseldorfer Symphony Orchestra in Germany, Zurich Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland and Moravian Symphony Orchestra in Czech Republic.

Chu Yi-Bing was appointed as cello professor and head of the cello department at the CCOM in Beijing, where he taught between 2004 and 2018. He founded the Chu Yi-Bing Cello Ensemble with his students, one of the very few chamber music groups in China, playing countless concerts in a number of diverse cities and provinces, schools, colleges and universities.

He has produced and recorded several CDs and DVDs with his cello ensemble in Dun Huang, a grand historical site which is an ancient city on the silk road in the Northwest China.
This project had been considered somewhat unique because of the performance of Chinese and western style music on this historical crossroad.

Chu Yi-Bing has also played for several Chinese Presidents and many of other nation leaders.

Chu Yi-Bing founded the SuperCello festival in Beijing, 2016. SuperCello is the premier cello festival in Asia. Every year it is attended by hundreds cellists including a number of world leading performers.

In the Practice Room with Benny Yi-Bing Chu

CelloBello is thrilled to present a blog series: In the Practice Room! We wanted to expand the conversation around practicing and help our readers get an idea of how each of our wonderful contributors think about and approach their own practice. Throughout these series, we will ask our CelloChat hosts a series of questions that revolve around this topic, and include short video clips of their answers to each question within these blog posts. We hope this will be an informative and exciting way to get an inside look at the practice process of some incredible cellists. In our first installment of this series, we begin with Benny Yi-Bing Chu. What is the first thing you do on the cello every day? https://youtu.be/Odgsqjw2-Rw Why do you practice? What [...]