Violinist and viral internet sensation Ray Chen will return to tour Australia this September, with recitals at Arts Centre Melbourne (8 September), Sydney Opera House (12 September), and the QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane (14 September).

Performing works by Beethoven, Saint-Saëns, Bach, Bazzini, Dvořák and Chick Corea, Chen will be accompanied by American pianist Julio Elizalde. The tour comes in the wake of the release of Chen’s Player 1 album in 2024, a project that saw Chen blend classical music with an array of themes from anime and film.

Ray Chen. Photo © Decca Records

Chen last performed live in Australia in 2023. “There are few classical performers who can be so cool and yet so universally accepted by the conservative concertgoer,” wrote Limelight’s Steve Moffatt of Chen’s appearance with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra – a concert in which he demonstrated his 1714 “Dolphin” Stradivarius violin (once owned by Jascha Heifetz) to Sydney audiences for the first time.

Chen is as much at home in the virtual community as he is on the concert hall stage. He is the founder of Tonic, a startup building a global community via a free...