Biography

Hongbo Cai is an interdisciplinary musician, writer, filmmaker, and researcher whose work bridges creative performance practice with critical inquiry into media. A graduate in piano performance from The Juilliard School, he made his Carnegie Hall debut at twenty-one and, at twenty-two, joined New York University’s piano faculty as an adjunct professor. The following year, he appeared with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium. The Herald described him as “an accomplished musician … with command of style and a refreshingly individual approach.”

He has performed with orchestras including the Shanghai Opera House, Shanghai Philharmonic, Pazardzhik State Symphony Orchestra (Bulgaria), Mikhail Jora Philharmonic (Romania), Florence Philharmonic, New York Youth Orchestra, West New York Chamber Orchestra, Orquestra do Algarve (Portugal), and members of the New York Philharmonic.

Beyond performance, he has served as an accredited press member at the Cannes Film Festival since 2022. His auteur studies have appeared in academic journals such as Cineforum and Strad Research, contributing to both performance and media scholarship.

As a writer-director, his works have been selected by the Venice Biennale College Blend, the Beijing International Short Film Festival, the Toronto International Independent Short Film Festival, and the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival and were presented at New York University’s Music Department Colloquium Series. His theater works have been chosen for the Juilliard Risk Lab Residency and the 2025 Community Impact Residency Program for U.S. Emerging Artists (fully funded). His creative projects have received over $17,000 in combined support from the Asian American Arts Alliance, The Slants Foundation, and the Alan D. Marks Center for Entrepreneurship at Juilliard.

As a 2025 Van Lier Fellow in Music, his artistic practice engages in an ongoing dialogue with the indigenous traditions of ethnic minorities—rituals, masks, deities, and movement—which he views as continuations of nature’s untamed force. This sensibility also runs through his explorations of aquatic environments, uncharted landscapes, and organic design.

In 2021, he completed a China tour of Shanghai, Xiamen, Zhengzhou, Hefei, Fuzhou, and Putian at the invitation of CPAA and Jucheng Theatre chains, and in June 2022, he embarked on a concert tour sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Utah, which included appearances in the music associations of Harvard and Brown Universities. He has performed throughout Europe, Asia, North America, and Latin America, in countries such as Indonesian, Singapore, France, Italy, Spain, Serbia, Portugal, Austria and the US, in venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, Symphony Hall in Boston, Salle Cortot in Paris, Ehrbal Saal and Musikverein in Vienna.

In 2023, Mr. Cai won the Grand Prix at the 5th Piano Island Festival and was awarded the concert management rights of the Piano Island Management as of January 2023, and was invited to be a guest teacher and adjudicator for the 6th Piano Island Festival, alongside Dang Thai Son, Stanislav Ioudenitch and Antonio Pompa Baldi. He also won the first prize in the 2022 Carls & Sofia Piano Competition and was awarded album distribution rights by KNS Classical. Other competition awards include First Prize at the WPTA Spain Piano Competition, First Prize at the Pacific Stars International Piano Competition.

The conductors he has collaborated with include David Robertson, Grigor Palikarov, Massimiliano Caldi, Ovidiu Balan, Joshua dos Santos, Glen Cortese, Andrew Kim, Muhai Tang, Chengjie Zhang, Renchang Fu, and Che Cao. Legendary pianist Christopher Elton, describes him as "a mature and fascinating performer who displays pure charisma, especially in his lyrical virtuosity and ability to converse with the audience…… "

As the Assistant Artistic Director of the Jinjiang International Piano Art Festival, he curated a festival faculty with members such as Mingqiang Li, Jie Yuan, Gordon Fergus-Thompson, and Marian Rybicki, and the Jinjiang Piano Festival Competition offers cash prizes for more than 10,000 USD.

Mr. Cai was a guest performer at the closing ceremony of China's First National Youth Games in Fuzhou, while he was also one of the Gilmore Piano Fellows selected in 2024. He is a graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and New England Conservatory of Music, under the tutelage of Prof. Zhou Ting, Prof. Meng-Chieh Liu, and Prof. Korsantia. Through his career, he was awarded multiple scholarships, including Dr. Ende Niu Foundation Scholarship, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Education Scholarship, Judy Gelfand Piano Scholarship, Jack Katzen Scholarship, Louise Chisholm Moran Piano Scholarship, Susan W. Rose Piano Fellowship, Gluck Fellowship, and Juilliard Career Grants.