Biography

Born in Boston to Chinese immigrants, George Li began piano lessons at the age of four. Two years later he won first prize in the Massachusetts Music Teachers Association state competition, setting a pattern that would continue with dozens more prizes and awards in coming years. Li made his orchestral debut with the Xiamen Philharmonic at the age of nine, gave his solo recital debut in his native Boston at ten, and made his Carnegie Hall debut at eleven. At twenty he won the Silver Medal at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition. Since then he has established a major international reputation for himself with his effortless, grace, brilliant virtuosity, and poised authority. The Washington Post noted his “staggering technical prowess, a sense of command, and depth of expression.” In 2011 Li performed for President Obama at the White House. Not yet thirty, Li’s engagements have already taken him to six continents as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist. As an exclusive Warner Classics artist, Li’s debut recital album, recorded live from the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, was released in October 2017; two years later came Tchaikovsky’s famous concerto, and his third album with the label, scheduled for release in 2024, includes solo works by Schumann, Ravel, and Stravinsky. In 2018, Li graduated from the joint program of Harvard University and the New England Conservatory. In his spare time Li enjoys reading and photography. He is also a sports enthusiast. 2nd LMMC concert.

https://www.georgelipianist.com/

Notes

For Schumann, the piano was the instrument through which he confided his most intimate thoughts, and was his most personal medium of artistic expression. Musicologist Joan Chissel calls the Arabeske “a charming, drawing-room aquarelle,” and Klaus G. Roy regards it as an example of a “sentimental salon piece at its best.”

The spirit of the dance in one way or another infuses the entire eighteen-piece set of the Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the League of David). Mazurka, waltz, polka, tarantella, Ländler, march and other dance forms are used either obviously or subtly transformed in these mood pieces, which are by turns joyous, eccentric, reflective, lively, agitated, and whimsical. The League of David was purely a product of the composer’s fertile imagination, fashioned from the Old Testament figure. The League consisted of proud, musical pioneers who went forth to do battle (with pens and notes, not swords and slingshots) against philistines and ultra-conservative composers of the day.

In Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911), Ravel conjures up the nineteenth-century Vienna of Schubert. In Ravel’s words, “the title … shows clearly enough my intention to compose a chain of waltzes in the style of Schubert. In the place of virtuosity … there was a style clearer, brighter, that emphasized the harmonies and brought them into relief.” There are eight waltzes in all, including an introductory number and an Epilogue, mostly played without interruption. The waltzes are alternately charming, coy, sophisticated, expansive and elegant.

Stravinsky’s ballet score Petrushka (1911), one of the pillars of the orchestral repertory, began life as a concert piece for solo piano and orchestra. Ten years after the ballet was introduced in Paris, Arthur Rubinstein persuaded the composer to arrange three numbers for solo piano. These amount to a bit less than half the complete ballet score. The highly animated “Russian Dance” is the music to which Petrushka and other puppets dance after being brought to life by a magician. In “In Petrushka’s Room” we follow every shift of emotional response to his surroundings: his terrified shrieks, his tearful sobs and whimpers, his frantic racing about the room, and screams of rage. The “Shrove-tide Fair” depicts a sequence of episodes and dances conjuring up the excitement and razzle-dazzle of a crowded carnival scene.

Robert Markow