Cheng Wai awarded Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award in 2009, is a renowned pianist in Hong Kong. Among the new generation of pianists, she is admired for her exquisite musicianship and consummate technical ability. She is evidently a born soloist. Her all-round performance technique proved that she has archived mastery of different schools of music. She can interpret music with her personality as well, disclosing her talent exhaustively. She is definitely a music artist and has been praised as a poet in music field.

Cheng Wai believes personal life experience is critical for a charming performance with vitality. After doctoral degree study, she finally decided to come back to Hong Kong for teaching profession and dedicating herself to music field. Actually, Cheng was faculty member at Northfield Mt Hermon Academy during her stay in USA and she received an Outstanding Faculty Award after her first year of teaching. She currently teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. It is her expectation to foster students to be new generation of music artists. She has been an accompanist of some young musicians, in order to encouraging their musical development in the profession. She has also been invited to be jury member in several Asian piano competitions, as a part of her contribution in music field.

In addition to teaching profession, Cheng Wai is an active recitalist and chamber musician. She has toured China and has performed at Lincoin Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Tivoli Recital Hall in Denmark, the Banff Center for the Arts, Beijing Concert Hall, Shanghai Grand Theatre, Guangzhou Xinghai Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall and Cultural Centre Concert Hall. The artists she has collaborated with including violinist, Lu Si-qing and Li Chuan-yun, and Cellist, Wang Jian etc. She has also been featured as a soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Stonybrook Philharmonic, Denmark Odense Symphony Orchestra, Yale Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong Pan-Asia Symphony Orchestra, Macau Chinese Orchestra and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. Conductors with whom she has collaborated with include Gustave Meier, Lawrence Smith, Yip Wing-sie, Mak Ka-lok Yan Hui-chang and Samuel Wong.

Cheng Wai started piano lessons at the age of six with Professor Ling Yuan from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. When she graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, she won a full scholarship for advanced piano studies with Seymour Lipkin at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, one of the leading music schools in the world. In 1991, she obtained a Bachelor of Music Degree there and entered Yale University to further her graduate studies with Claude Frank, where she completed her Master’s Degree and Artist Diploma. Finally, she received the highest achievement, Doctoral Degree of Musical Arts in performance at the New York State University at Stony Brook. 

She has won numerous competitions, including the New York Olga Koussevitsky Piano Competition, the Kingsville International Piano Competition in USA, the Gina Bachauer Asia Region Competition, the Hong Kong Young Music Performer Award Competition for the International Year of Youth, New York Stony Brook Concerto Competition, Yale Philharmonic Woolsey Hall Competition, Bergen Philharmonic Competition for Violin and Piano in New York, the William Byrd International Young Artist Competition and the Pearl River Piano Competition in China.

Cheng Wai has well versed herself in different excellent music experiences: in Beijing, players technique and precision are emphasized; in Hong Kong, players musical understanding and artistic appeal are developed; in the United States, musical interpretation and unity and own personality are guided. In the end, she established herself in the professional artist world.