Ying Li
Chinese pianist Ying Li is a winner of the 2021 YCA Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, as well as recipient of The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival Prize and the Tri-I Noon Recitals Prize. She has received top awards in numerous national and international competitions including the inaugural Antonio Mormone International Prize, Sarasota Artist Series Piano Competition, Brevard Music Festival, International Liszt Piano Competition for Young Pianists, and was a finalist at Concours musical international de Montréal.
She has performed with many leading orchestras such as The Philadelphia Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Brevard Music Festival Orchestra, L’Accademia Orchestra del La Scala, NWD-Philharmoniker, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland Pfalz, and the Stuttgart Philharmonic with conductors such as Lina Gonzalez-Granados, Xian Zhang, Dan Ettinger, Eric Jacobsen, Jonathon Heyward, Dame Jane Glover, and Leslie Suganandarajah.
Her recent highlights include concerto appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Orlando Philharmonic, Eugene Symphony, Aiken Symphony, and the Salisbury Symphony, along with festival performances as a Bravo! Vail Piano Fellow, her debut at La Jolla SummerFest, and a return to the Nantucket Musical Arts Society.
Upcoming performances include concerto appearances with the Chattanooga Symphony, Carolina Philharmonic, Kiel Philharmonic at Sala Verdi in Milan, Chamber Orchestra Aquila, Anchorage Symphony, Loudoun Symphony in Virginia, and the Maryland Symphony. Recital engagements feature appearances at the Milano Torino Festival Internazionale della Musica, Laguna Beach in California, The 222 in Healdsburg, CA, and Hayden’s Ferry Chamber Music. She will also be featured on the YCA Season Finale at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in May 2026.
Ying made her New York City recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in the Peter Marino Concert and her Washington, D.C. debut at The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, with additional U.S. recitals at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Evergreen Museum & Library in Baltimore, Sunday Musicale in New Jersey, Southeastern Piano Festival, the Honest Brook Music Festival, and the University of Florida in Gainesville. Recent recital engagements include Sala Verdi in Milan, Hammerklavier International Piano Festival in Barcelona, Musica Insieme Bologna, Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, Fazioli Pianoforti in Sacile, and the C. Bechstein Series at the Konzerthaus in Berlin. She was also featured on WQXR's Eine-kleine Birthday-musik, a free, all-Mozart live-streamed concert from The Greene Space in New York City, celebrating Mozart's 266th birthday.
As an avid chamber musician, Ying has appeared at prestigious festivals around the world including the Verbier Festival Academy, ClassicheFORME International Chamber Music Festival in Lecce, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, La Jolla Music Society, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Artists Series Concerts in Sarasota, and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival.
Ying began piano lessons at age five in China, and studied at the Elementary School division of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing before moving to Philadelphia in 2012 at age fourteen to study at the Curtis Institute of Music with Jonathan Biss and Seymour Lipkin. After receiving her Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute in 2019, she pursued both her Master of Music and Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School under the guidance of Robert McDonald.