Sheng Cai has been honoured with a number of prizes and awards and continues to push the boundaries in interpreting both the established and rarities of the piano literature.
Since his debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at just fifteen years old, Sheng Cai has performed a broad spectrum of concerto repertoire-- Bartok, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Gershwin, Grieg, Mozart, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saens, Schumann, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky with invitations to dozens of orchestras worldwide as guest soloist. Recent concerto performances include invitations to perform with the Toronto Symphony, Quebec Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Windsor Symphony, Fort Collins Symphony, New Bedford Symphony and Shanghai Symphony, Shenzhen Symphony as well as with Philharmonisches Orchester Erfurt in Germany, Krakow Philharmonic of Poland, North Czech Philharmonic, Jalisco Philharmonic and Orquesta Filarmonica Boca del Rio of Mexico, Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogota in Colombia among many others. In Canada, Sheng Cai was also invited by the Vancouver Symphony to perform for the Chinese New Year Gala Concert and has performed with numerous regional orchestras in the US and Canada from coast to coast such as Kingston, Kamloops, Folsom Lake symphonies, Glacier symphony of Montana. He has recently worked with many conductors such as Keith Lockhart, Yoav Talmi, David Lockington,Robert Moody, Myron Michailidis, Donato Cabrera, Robert Franz , Dina Gilbert, Guoyong Zhang, Marco Parisotto and Eckart Preu.
In solo recitals, Sheng Cai has been heard in many prestigious venues in North America, such as Steinway Hall in New York, Jordan Hall in Boston, Chicago's international Music Center, the Cleveland Play House, the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham, CBC's Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, and other distinguished venues in Stratford, Elora, Montreal and Winnipeg. In China, he inaugurated the Ningbo concert hall, giving both recitals and concerto performances. As a chamber musician, Sheng Cai has collaborated with a number of fine artists, including the Enso String Quartet. Many of his performances have been broadcast on across North America such as CBC Radio Canada and WCLV Radio station in USA.
Sheng Cai is a passionate recording artist, his first recording was a CD of works by Mozart and Martinu for the Canadian Broadcast Company. His most recent Schumann and Liszt CD releases on Centaur and ATMA classique labels gained international acclaim from the American Record Guide, The international Music Web review in UK, the Wholenote Magazine in Canada and the Fanfare music Magazine in the US.
He was a top-prize winner at many competitions throughout his teenage years, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition (Concours OSM) , Toronto Symphony Piano Competition, The International Young Artists Competition of Colorado, The Bay State competition in Boston, and was the youngest finalist and special prize winner at the Bösendorfer International Piano Competition in the US.
Sheng Cai is instrumental in advocating many neglected works that are peaks of the piano literature, works by composers such as Enescu, Kabalevsky, Kapustin, Medtner, Morawetz, Villa-Lobos and a number of his own works frequently shows up on his concert programs, his creative programming have made audience aware of such treasures of the piano literature deserves a wider audience.