Bryan Cheng was born in 1997 in Canada. At the Berlin University of the Arts, he made his Bachelor of Music with the violoncello with Jens Peter Maintz, Hans Jorgen Jensen, Yuli Turovsky, Anne Contant and Pawel Szymczyk-Marjanovic. Currently he’s pursuing his Master's degree at the Berlin University of the Arts in the studio of Jens Peter Maintz. 

Over the years, he has been mentored by David Geringas, Frans Helmerson, Menahem Pressler, Laurence Lesser, Richard Aaron, David Finckel, Jian Wang and  Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi. He also received a scholarship from the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein and participated in the intensive music weeks held there.

Bryan won several prizes in international competitions. Among others, he won the 1st prize at the “Sorel-Tracy Classical Music Competition” (2011, 2009), the Grand Prize and 1st place at the “Ottawa Kiwanis Music Festival” (2012, 2011), the 3rd prize at the “OSM Standard Life Competition” (2013), the “Harold Crabtree Foundation Award” at the “National Arts Centre Orchestra Bursary Competition” (2014) and the 1st prize at the “National Arts Centre Orchestra Bursary Competition” (2016). In 2014 he was selected as “CBC Music Young Artist of the Year” and in 2015 as one of CBC Music’s “30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30”. Bryan is also laureate of the 2019 “Hellam International Young Artists’ Competition” and the 1st prize at the 2020 inaugural “Bader & Overton Canadian Cello Competition”.

Bryan participated in several festivals and summer programs such as the National Arts Centre Summer Music Institute Young Artists Program, the Oxford Arts Centre Summer Music School, the Holland Music Sessions, the Aspen Summer Music Festival, the Brugge International Masterclasses, the Toronto Summer Music Festival and School, Dresdner Musikfestspiele and the International Pilsen Music Program.

He made his solo debut at the age of ten with the Orchestre de chambre I Musici de Montréal, his Carnegie Hall recital debut at 14 and his Elbphilharmonie debut in 2018 with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. As a soloist he played with orchestras all over the world, among others with the Esprit Orchestra in the Koerner Hall in Toronto under Alex Pauk,  Ottawa Chamber Orchestra with conductor Donnie Deacon, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, CAST Philomusica Orchestra, Kanata Symphony Orchestra, Nouvelle Génération Chamber Orchestra with conductor Yuli Turovsky, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Panamá, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta as well as the Springfield (MO), Kingston, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Okanagan, Niagara, Lahti, and Schleswig-Holstein symphonies.

Bryan has released a trilogy of critically-acclaimed albums on German classical label audite: “Violoncelle français” (2016, selected as one of WCRB Classical Radio Boston’s top 8 CDs of 2017), “Violonchelo del fuego” (2018), and “Russian Legends” (2019, selected by BBC Radio Scotland as Album of the Week). His recordings have been lauded by international press and publications in a dozen countries worldwide. 

Bryan plays on the ca. 1696 Bonjour Stradivari cello and the ca. 1830 Shaw Adam bow, generously on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank as First Laureate of their 2018 Competition.