Yuchao Zhou is a software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. A native of China, Zhou pursued his master’s degree in computer science in the US. Beyond his technical career, Zhou has a profound passion for piano and classical music, a pursuit he began at age 5 and has continued for over two decades without formal music education. Music serves as a vital channel for self-expression and identity for him. Recently, he was a finalist in the 2025 Oberlin International Adult Amateur Piano Competition. He also showcased his talent at the 2024 California Concerto Festival for Amateur Pianists, performing the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Mission College Symphony. He was also a performer of the PianoTexas Amateur program in 2024. His musical journey has been enriched through studies with esteemed pianists worldwide, including pianists from China, Ukraine, Austria, Venezuela, Israel, Australia and Germany.

“As a pianist with a full-time career outside music, I am especially drawn to works that require long-term commitment. My WIPAC program grew out of a broader season-long project centered on Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and Chopin’s Sonata No. 2, which has become the structural center of this work. Its combination of sonata form, scherzo, funeral march, and brief, unsettling finale makes it both technically demanding and dramatically unusual. Preparing it alongside Rachmaninoff’s preludes and Liszt’s Transcendental Étude No. 10 has pushed me to think more deeply about sound, pacing, and large-scale musical architecture as a serious amateur pianist.”