About

Helena Cheu is a pianist and composer from Northern Ontario currently studying at the Unversity of Ottawa for her Master’s of Music in Composition.  She is Chinese-Canadian and often feels side-lined by both sides of her heritage. Before the pandemic, she worked as a pianist, playing for musicals, the ballet, as well as church services and funerals.  In March 2020, for the first time in her life she experienced what it feels like to have Nothing-To-Do.  It was at that point she decided she wanted to explore her limits as a composer and began studying at Queens University. Her work often centres around themes of alienation and isolation. The bulk of her compositions are mainly arranged for voices with two of her choral works already commissioned and performed by Cantabile Choirs in Kingston and the Sudbury Chamber Singers in Sudbury. Most recently she was the runnerup in a chamber event organized by the University of Ottawa in conjunction with Chamberfest. Her piece “Atlantis”, a meditation about justice for woodwind quintet, will receive a second performance at the festival in July of 2025. Now with an MMus in Composition from the University of Ottawa, she teaches piano and voice at the Bird and the Bean Music Studio in Ottawa where she continues to compose and find great joy in sharing her love of music with so many people every day.

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