Yundi Li (Yundi Li) |

Yundi Li

Exactly a decade has passed since October 2000, from the moment Yundi Li made a real sensation at the XIV International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, winning the first prize. He is known as the youngest winner of this most prestigious competition, which he won at the age of eighteen! He is also known as the first Chinese pianist to receive such an honor, and as the first performer who, in the last fifteen years leading up to the 2000 competition, was finally awarded the first prize. In addition, for the best performance of the polonaise at this competition, the Polish Chopin Society awarded him a special prize. If you strive for absolute accuracy, then the name of the pianist Yundi Lee is exactly how they pronounce it all over the world! – in fact, in accordance with the phonetic system of romanization of the national language officially adopted in China, it should be pronounced exactly the opposite – Li Yongdi. This is exactly how this XNUMX% original Chinese name sounds in pinyin – [Li Yundi]. The first hieroglyph in it just denotes the generic name [Li], which, both in the European and American traditions, is unequivocally associated with the surname.

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Yundi Li was born on October 7, 1982 in Chongqing, which is located in the central part of China (Sichuan Province). His father was a worker at a local metallurgical plant, his mother was an employee, so his parents had nothing to do with music. But, as often happens with many future musicians, Yundi Lee’s craving for music manifested itself in early childhood. Hearing the accordion in a shopping arcade at the age of three, he was so fascinated by it that he resolutely did not let himself be taken away. And his parents bought him an accordion. At the age of four, after classes with a teacher, he already mastered playing this instrument. A year later, Yundi Li won the grand prize at the Chongqing Children’s Accordion Competition. At the age of seven, he asked his parents to take his first piano lessons – and the boy’s parents also went to meet him. Two more years later, Yongdi Li’s teacher introduced him to Dan Zhao Yi, one of the most famous piano teachers in China. It was with him that he was destined to study further for nine years, the final of which was his brilliant victory at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

But this will not happen soon: in the meantime, the nine-year-old Yundi Li finally masters the intention to become a professional pianist – and he works hard and hard with Dan Zhao Yi on the basics of pianistic technique. At the age of twelve, he plays the best in the audition and secures a place at the prestigious Sichuan Music School. This takes place in 1994. In the same year, Yundi Li won the Children’s Piano Competition in Beijing. A year later, in 1995, when Dan Zhao Yi, a professor at the Sichuan Conservatory, received an invitation to take a similar position at the Shenzhen School of Arts in southern China, the aspiring pianist’s family also moved to Shenzhen to allow the young talent to continue his education with his teacher. In 1995, Yundi Li entered the Shenzhen Art School. The tuition fee in it was very high, but Yundi Lee’s mother still leaves her job in order to keep her son’s learning process under vigilant control and create all the conditions necessary for him to study music. Fortunately, this educational institution appointed Yundi Li as a gifted student with scholarships and paid the expenses for foreign competitive trips, from which a talented student almost always returned as a winner, bringing various awards with him: this allowed the young musician to continue his studies. To this day, the pianist remembers with great gratitude both the city and the Shenzhen School of the Arts, which at the initial stage provided invaluable support for the development of his career.

At the age of thirteen, Yundi Lee won first place at the International Stravinsky Youth Piano Competition in the USA (1995). In 1998, again, in America, he took third place in the junior group at the International Piano Competition, held under the auspices of Missouri Southern State University. Then in 1999 he received third prize at the International Liszt Competition in Utrecht (Netherlands), in his homeland he became the main winner of the International Piano Competition in Beijing, and in the USA he took first place in the category of young performers at the International Gina Bachauer Piano Competition . And, as already mentioned, a series of impressive achievements of those years was triumphantly completed by the sensational victory of Yundi Li at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, the decision to participate in which for this pianist was made at a high level by the Ministry of Culture of China. After this victory, the pianist announced that he would no longer participate in any competitions and would devote himself entirely to concert activity. Meanwhile, the statement made did not prevent him from continuing to improve his own performing skills in Germany soon after, where for a number of years, under the guidance of the famous piano teacher Arie Vardi, he studied at the Hannover Higher School of Music and Theater (Hochschule fuer Musik und Theater) , for the sake of this, leaving the parental home for a very long time. From November 2006 to the present, the pianist’s place of residence has been Hong Kong.

The victory at the Chopin competition opened up wide prospects for Yundi Lee both in terms of developing a world performing career and in relation to work in the recording industry. For many years he was the exclusive artist of Deutsche Grammophon (DG) – and the pianist’s first studio disc, released on this label in 2002, was a solo album with Chopin’s music. This debut disc in Japan, Korea and China (countries in which Yundi Lee does not forget to perform regularly) has sold 100000 copies! But Yundi Lee never aspired (does not aspire now) to boost his career: he believes that half of the time a year should be spent on concerts, and half of the time on self-improvement and learning a new repertoire. And this, in his opinion, is important in order to always “bring the most sincere emotions to the public and make good music for it.” The same is true in the field of studio recording – do not exceed the intensity of the release of more than one CD per year, so that the art of music does not turn into a pipeline. Yundi Lee’s discography on the DG label includes six solo studio CDs, one live DVD and four CD compilations with his fragmentary participation.

In 2003, his studio solo album was released with a recording of Liszt’s works. In 2004 – a studio “solo” with a selection of scherzos and impromptu Chopin, as well as a double collection “Love moods. The most romantic classics”, in which Yundi Lee performed one of Chopin’s nocturnes from his 2002 solo disc. In 2005, a DVD was released with a recording of a live concert in 2004 (Festspielhaus Baden-Baden) with works by Chopin and Liszt (not counting one piece by a Chinese composer), as well as a new studio “solo” with works by Scarlatti, Mozart, Schumann and Liszt called “Viennese Recital” (curiously, this studio recording was made on the stage of the Great Hall of the Vienna Philharmonic). In 2006, a “multi-volume” exclusive CD edition of “Steinway legends: Grand Edition” was released in a limited edition. As his latest (bonus) disc number 21 is a compilation CD entitled “Steinway legends: legends in the making”, which includes recordings of performances by Helen Grimaud, Yundi Lee and Lang Lang. Chopin’s opus No. 22 “Andante spianato and the Great Brilliant Polonaise” (recorded from the pianist’s debut solo disc) is included in this disc, interpreted by Yundi Lee. 2007 saw the release of a studio CD recording of Liszt and Chopin’s First Piano Concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Andrew Davis, as well as a double collection of “Piano moods” in which Liszt’s “Dreams of Love” Nocturne No. 3 (S. 541) from the 2003 solo disc.

In 2008, a studio disc was released with a recording of two piano concertos – the Second Prokofiev and the First Ravel with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Seiji Ozawa (recorded in the Great Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic). Yundi Li became the first Chinese pianist to record a disc with this illustrious ensemble. In 2010, Euroarts released an exclusive DVD containing the documentary “Young Romantic: A Portrait of Yundi Li” (88 minutes) about Yundi Li’s work with the Berlin Philharmonic and a bonus concert “Yundi Li Plays at La Roque d’Antheron, 2004” with works by Chopin and Liszt (44 minutes). In 2009, under the DG label, Chopin’s complete works (a set of 17 CDs) appeared on the market of musical products, in which Yundi Lee performed recordings of four Chopin impromptu made earlier. This edition was the pianist’s last collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon. In January 2010, he signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics for the recording of all of Chopin’s works for piano solo. And already in March, the first double CD-album with recordings of all the composer’s nocturnes (twenty-one piano pieces) was released on the new label. Curiously, this album presents the pianist (apparently with a label change) simply as Yundi, another (reduced) way of spelling and pronouncing his name.

In the decade that has passed since winning the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Yundi Li has toured extensively around the world (in Europe, America and Asia), with solo concerts and as a soloist, performing at the most prestigious venues and with a number of famous orchestras and conductors. He also visited Russia: in 2007, under the baton of Yuri Temirkanov, the pianist opened the season on the stage of the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic with the Honored Ensemble of Russia, the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Then a young Chinese musician performed Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto (recall that he recorded this concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the same year, and its recording appeared the following year). As a promotion of his latest album in March of this year Yundi Lee gave a solo monographic concert of Chopin’s works on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall in London, which was literally bursting with the influx of the public. In the same year (during the 2009/2010 concert season) Yundi Li triumphantly performed at the jubilee Chopin Festival in Warsaw, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth, took part in two European tours and gave a series of concerts in the USA (on the stage of Carnegie- Hall in New York) and in Japan.

No less excitement was caused by the pianist’s recent concert in Moscow. “Today it seems to me that I have become even closer to Chopin,” says Yundi Li. – He is clear, pure and simple, his works are beautiful and deep. I feel like I performed Chopin’s works in an academic style ten years ago. Now I feel more free and play more freely. I am full of passion, I feel able to perform in front of the whole world. I think that now is the time when I am truly able to perform the works of a brilliant composer.” An excellent confirmation of what has been said is not only the flurry of enthusiastic responses from critics after the pianist’s performance at the anniversary Chopin celebrations in Warsaw, but also the warm reception of the Moscow public. It is also important that the occupancy of the hall at the Yundi Lee concert in the House of Music can be called, according to the current “difficult crisis times”, truly a record!