NEW YORK—As a little girl, Li Yan was completely enamored with a gift she received on her first birthday, a piano.
“I just adored the sound of it,” said Li, who grew up in the city of Dalian, in northeast China.
“At such a young age I did not have a deep understanding of the arts, but I had a very natural love for the piano. As I sang with my piano, I felt that we were connected. It was like a childhood friend to me. When I was young, I liked to be alone with my piano and live in the world of music.”
Li, now a virtuoso classical pianist who cultivates her art at the renowned Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, won the silver award in the 2008 New Tang Dynasty Televison (NTDTV) International Chinese Piano Competition. She formally began her studies at age four with a Chinese-Canadian piano professor from Liaoning University. She was the youngest student of the well-known professor. Just a year later she won first prize in a children’s piano competition in her home town.
As Li’s pursuit of music intensified, her grandparents, with whom she lived, became resistant; both were university professors who hoped she would take a more “orthodox” career path.
But Li’s persistence gradually proved to her grandparents that piano was her talent. Not long after she won her first competition, she was admitted to the Dalian Northern School of Music and Dance to study piano. Soon her grandparents took pleasure in watching their young granddaughter perform once a week.
At age nine, Li’s mother decided to bring her daughter to Moscow to pursue her musical education with world-renowned Russian pianists. She studied at the Moscow Chopin Conservatory of Music, one of Russia’s most prestigious music academies. Her instructor, Kira Alexandrovna Shashkina, had taught Mikhail Pletnev, founder and artistic director of the Russian National Orchestra.
Li then went on to study at the Central Music School of Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory—one of the oldest music institutions in Russia. Studying under pianist Schmitt Alexei Mikhailovich, she finished the four-year curriculum within 18 months.
“Classical music is both pure and sacred,” said Li, adding that Mikhailovich, one of the best organists in the world, was an avid researcher of Bach.
“He told me that contemporary people are no longer incorporating Bach’s original inner meaning while playing his music. He said that Bach’s music came from above; therefore, the pianist needs to have a virtuous heart, classy personality, and a clean soul in order to express the pure beauty of that era.”
An opportunity presented itself in 2007 when Li received an invitation to perform as a soloist in “Holiday Wonders,” a premiere Chinese dance and music show in New York bringing together leading dancers, choreographers, and musicians from around the world.
The following year she revisited the United States to participate in the 2008 NTDTV International Chinese Piano Competition, bringing her to the world’s stage. She played repertoires by different composers including Beethoven’s Sonata “Pathétique.”
“She played the beginning chords of Beethoven’s Sonata op.13 with such well-trained skills and techniques,” said Becky Yao, a judge in the competition.
“Li Yan’s music is very deep and strong. I think the sound can be even heard from very far away. This powerful sound is a sign of skill, as well as a characteristic of Beethoven’s style. And she wasn’t banging the piano—it was coming from her inner force, which is linked to her personality.”
Yao also noted Li’s demeanor, considered an important aspect of a musician.
“Her stage presence matches the qualities of the composer of the repertoire—very upright and virtuous. When a musician is upright, his or her spiritual realm would also be high, which enables him or her to have a better understanding of the piano pieces.”
All the judges were deeply impressed by Li’s extraordinary talent.
After the NTDTV competition, Li decided to remain in the United States to attend the Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, an advanced school and training center noted for grooming professional Chinese artists in accelerated training.
“Although I gained very great fundamental skills under the strict training of renowned piano pedagogues, I learned most of the real meaning behind music from Fei Tian,” said Li, who has studied at the school for a year now. “Fei Tian holds that technique alone doesn’t do it—that a person’s upright quality contributes to the influence and deep understanding of music.”
At Fei Tian, she was introduced to classical Chinese music along with the essence of traditional Chinese culture and arts, connecting her back to her ethnic roots.
“I learned that music is meant to encourage people to pursue good things,” she said, adding that she hopes she “can help revive this great culture for my U.S. friends.”
