“My teacher was always a big advocate for us having a second instrument to benefit our piano playing. I decided that voice would be best for me so I wouldn’t have to buy another instrument.”

Today her dual artistry and love of Chopin are both showcased in a 2021 debut recording on the Orchid Classics label. “Chelsea Guo: Chopin in My Voice” includes beloved Chopin piano repertoire along with two of Chopin’s 17 art songs which she discovered aren’t often talked about—even though Chopin admired opera singers and loved vocal music, especially Italian bel canto.

“The piano and the vocal repertoires are so vast,” she said. “And there are so many interconnections between art songs and opera and the music the same composers created for the piano. There are so many opportunities that I’m just starting to explore.”

After taking a top prize in 2020’s Chopin National Competition in Miami, Guo returns to Florida with piano recitals for the Chopin Foundation of the United States, the Miami International Piano Festival, and the Grand Piano Series.

In her Grand Piano Series performances, Guo will present all-piano works, but her passion for vocal music nonetheless influences her piano recital repertoire. The first piece in her program, for instance, is Mendelssohn’s appropriately titled “Songs Without Words.”

As Grand Piano Series musical director Milana Strezeva put it, “The piano is often seen as a percussion instrument, but in the right pianist’s hands, it can sing and become truly magical.”

Guo’s solo piano performances have taken her to Carnegie Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall as well as prominent venues throughout the United States and around the world. A guest artist of the Leeds Inaugural Piano Festival, she was also featured in Europe in solo recitals presented by the Mozarteum Summer Series in Salzburg and in China in a six-concert tour under the auspices of the Shenzhen Piano Music Festival.

Her orchestral appearances have included the Fort Worth Symphony under the baton of Maestro Barry Douglas and the Torun Symphony Orchestra in Poland. Guo was also honored to be a Young Scholar of the Lang Lang Foundation , a young artist of the Artemisia Akademie at Yale, and a recipient of the U.S. Chopin Foundation scholarships for four consecutive years.

Guo graduated with honors from the Juilliard School’s Pre-College as a double major in piano and classical voice. She is currently pursuing a bachelor of music in piano at Juilliard College under the tutelage of Hung-Kuan Chen and continuing her vocal studies with Lorraine Nubar and Jason Ferrante.

Guo will spend time in Naples in a mini-residency working with elementary school students at two Title I schools.

Her concerts will be on Dec. 6 in the auditorium of St. Leo the Great Catholic Church, 28290 Beaumont Road, Bonita Springs, and on Dec. 8 at Gulf Theater at The Military Heritage Museum, 900 W. Marion Avenue, Punta Gorda.

Both concerts begin at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets may be purchased at grandpianoseries.org; for information, call 646-734-8179.