Mai Li

Full Biography.

An accomplished Chinese pianist and pedagogue, Mai Li is an artist dedicated to sharing the poetic and emotional qualities of music with audiences around the world. As an avid soloist and chamber musician, Mai has performed frequently throughout the United States, England, and China, presenting recitals in major cities such as Washington D.C., New York City, Cincinnati, Hastings, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and many others. In 2018, she was commissioned to perform at the Kennedy Center for the Arts on behalf of the International Young Artists Piano Competition. Also that year, she was invited to contribute to the Dongguan Youth Art Season, I LOVE ART series, where she performed a solo recital, coached a student in duet playing, and taught a public masterclass before a massive audience filling the Dongguan Cultural Center. Glowing reviews and articles were subsequently published in the newspapers Xin Kuai Dongguan, Yang Cheng Pai Newspaper, China News Network, Information Times, Dongguan Daily News, Dongguan Headline, and the Dongguan Times Digital News. Last fall amid the pandemic, she performed Liszt’s First Piano Concerto with the KU Symphony Orchestra.

Having taught extensively in both China and the United States, Mai is committed to passing her musical knowledge to the next generation of musicians. Currently in New York, she is teaching piano and music theory through in-person and virtual lessons. Her students have successfully passed ABRSM piano and theory exams, as well as NYSSMA exams under her tutelage. At the University of Kansas, Mai taught both individual lessons and group piano classes to music students as part of her Graduate Teaching Assistantship, helping students to obtain undergraduate music degree offers. In China, she worked at multiple music schools, teaching theory and private lessons, while organizing studio recitals and preparing her students for successful piano examinations, juries, and university music auditions.

Originally from the Guangdong Province of China, Mai was enrolled in piano lessons at the age of five and quickly became serious about pursuing a life in music. Since the age of nine, she has won top prizes in a variety of international and regional piano competitions, including the World Piano Teachers Association International Piano Competition, the University of Kansas Piano Concerto Competition, the 33rd International Young Artist Piano Competition, the 15th and 16th Hong Kong-Asia’s Piano Open Competition, the 4th Guangzhou Piano Open Competition, and many others. She has studied in lessons and masterclasses with world-class pianists like Robert McDonald, Sergei Babayan, John Perry, Boris Slutsky, Alexander Braginsky, Martin Katz, Rebecca Penneys, and many more.

Retaining a deep interest in collaboration, Mai co-founded a woodwind chamber ensemble called the Sunflower Trio, consisting of piano, oboe, and bassoon. As a group, the trio competed nationally and performed throughout Kansas. For her doctoral studies, Mai focused her research on the two-piano music of Francis Poulenc, writing an extensive stylistic and performance analysis as well as performing most of the repertoire in a piano duo and lecture recital.

Besides the common-practice repertoire, Mai is also deeply interested in new music, featuring it in her recital programming whenever possible. In 2018 at the Kennedy Center, she performed Li-ly Chang’s Portraits, a suite of piano miniatures composed earlier that year. She also gave the Midwest premiere of composer Bin Li’s Fuzhou in 1860 in a new music concert sponsored by the Helianthus New Music Ensemble.

Mai completed her DMA degree at the University of Kansas while studying under Dr. Jack Winerock, international concert artist and former chair of the piano department. She received her masters degree with Professor Soyeon Kate Lee at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and her undergraduate degree with Professor Galyna Popova at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in China.