Biographical Info

Dr Ji Liu combines a distinguished and multifaceted career as a pianist, composer, scholar and educator. As an international soloist, he has performed at venues and festivals including Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican Centre, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Auditorium du Louvre, Royal Concertgebouw, National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing, Henley Festival, Petworth Festival, Bristol Proms, Verbier Festival, etc. At Classic FM’s 25th anniversary, Ji Liu performed for His Majesty King Charles III and other distinguished guests at the Dumfries House.

As an international soloist, Ji Liu has worked with international orchestras such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Beijing’s NCPA Orchestra, Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, etc. He gave world premieres of Ludovico Einaudi’s Piano Concerto Domino with RLPO in Liverpool and Boris Bergmann’s The Richter Scale in London; China premieres of Philip Glass’s Complete Piano Etudes in Shenzhen and Frederic Rzewski’s People United Will Never Be Defeated! Variations in Shanghai.

His discography encompasses repertoires from the Baroque period to the 21st century and outreaches to cross-genre and interdisciplinary collaborations. Ji Liu was nominated the “Best Classical Artist of the Year” at the inaugural Global Award. His research has been presented at institutions such as the University of Oxford, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, the University of California and the City University of New York.

As a published composer, Ji Liu has written for orchestras, chamber ensembles and solo instruments. His 18-hour Sonata Fantasy (2020) was certified as “The Longest Ever Released Instrumental Work” by the Guinness World Record. His Fantasia, Frozen Starry (2021) was co-commissioned by Johnson & Johnson and WABC Foundation to support charitable works for children with autism. His Symphonic Poem: Pictures at a Grand Ceremony for Jinghu/Erhu and Symphony Orchestra (2023) was premiered by Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maestro Long Yu.

Ji Liu studied Piano Performance with Professor Christopher Elton and Composition with Professor Ruth Byrchmore at the Royal Academy of Music. He was awarded the Tabor Foundation Piano Award from the Verbier Festival and the Debut Prize from the Hattori Foundation and was an alumnus of the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund, Kirckman Concert Society and YCAT. He holds a PhD in Music (supervised by Professor Daniel Leech-Wilkinson) from King’s College London, where he was a Research Associate of the “Towards ‘Global Histories of Music’ Curriculums” team led by Dr Katherine Schofield.

He is a Steinway Artist, an Honorary Artist of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra Foundation and the recipient of the Forrest Creative and Performance Leadership Fellowship. Shanghai FM94.7 appointed him the Inaugural Music Ambassador. Since 2018, Ji Liu has served as the Head of Performance at the Kent International Piano Course and is a visiting professor at Shenzhen University. He is now the Head of Keyboard Department at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London and serves as a trustee of London’s Blackheath Halls.