"The calmness of Yundi Li's playing comes from the extraordinary mobility and flexibility of his fingers and hands. The result is a type of piano playing that is exciting precisely because it is so natural. The mysteries and depths lie in the music itself. And these appear even more powerful when played in so wonderfully light and sensitive a way."

Li's Commitment to Music Since a Child

Yundi Li was born in 1982 in Chongqing , the attractive city in Southeast China. His outstanding musical talent became apparent very early: At the tender age of five he won the first prize at the Chongqing Children's Accordion Competition. In 1989 he received his first piano lessons and two years later he took up his studies with Dan Zhaoyi, one of China's most renowned piano teachers.

Even when young, Yundi Li hosted the ambition of becoming a professional pianist. In 1994 he became a pupil at the junior high school attached to the Sichuan Music Academy and just one year later he won the Stravinsky International Youth Piano Competition held in Champaign, Illinois (USA). Further accolades followed.

In 1998 he won the Missouri Southern International Youth Piano Competition in Joplin, Missouri (USA), and the following year the Liszt International Piano Competition in Utrecht of the Netherlands and the China International Youth Piano Competition in Beijing .

His greatest triumph came in October 2000 when he was awarded first prize at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. In addition, Yundi Li received an award for the best performance of a Polonaise and distinguished himself as one of the youngest first-prize winners in the history of the competition. The year 2001 saw the signing of an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon in Shenzhen, which is also the label of the other Chinese piano wunderkind, Lang Lang.

After graduating from the Shenzhen Arts School in 2001, Yundi Li chose to pursue his music study in the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hanover. His present teacher is Arie Vardi in Hanover.

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