“A Bu is the first Chinese jazz pianist to achieve international recognition. He tells true stories at the piano!” enthuses Spanish jazz pianist Michel Camilo, the laureate of the 2019 Ruhr Piano Festival Prize, who selected the outstanding young piano talent from Beijing as scholarship holder for the 2019-2020 season. Born in 1999, A Bu’s true name is Dai Liang: he was first discovered at a festival in Beijing. Parallel to his classical piano studies since the age of four, he had already gathered a great deal of experience in jam sessions, he had founded a jazz trio, and he had visited New York City. Chick Corea once coaxed him to play a spontaneous duet with him onstage in Shanghai. A Bu released his first album, “88 Tones of Black and White”, at the age of fourteen; soon, one thing followed another. In 2014 he was admitted to the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York; he won First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2015 Montreux Jazz Festival Solo Piano Competition. That same year, he released his second album, “Butterflies Fly in Pairs”. A Bu participated in the widely renowned All-Star Global Concerts on the occasion of the International Jazz Day in Paris (2015), in Havana (2017), and in Melbourne (2019). He now lives in New York City and is invited to perform on concert podiums the world over. Now, the “wildly promising young lion at the keys”, as his mentor Michel Camilo calls him, will perform his début at the Ruhr Piano Festival, one year later than planned.