A 'busy child' who never sat still
Like Chopin, Liu has a playful side. Growing up in a multicultural environment, Liu was endowed with the ability to quickly adapt to the multicultural contexts of various musical genres. Born in Paris to Chinese parents in 1997 and raised in Canada, Liu also visited his grandparents in Beijing each year. In his grandparents' words, Liu was "the busy child" who never sat still, jumping here and there—and Liu says with a laugh that the "piano somehow was a way to keep me focused for five or 10 minutes". When Liu started learning piano at the age of eight, his father, a banker, found him a piano teacher in a newspaper advertisement. Unsure of Liu's future commitment to the art, Liu's father was reluctant to "invest" initially, only buying him an electronic keyboard with 55 keys. It was not until Liu won his first junior competition at the age of 14 or 15 that he earned himself his first grand piano. Nevertheless, Liu admitted to once having thoughts of giving up. But as a natural-born optimist, he persevered and embarked on the path of becoming a performer.
"In my own mind, I didn't really change, you know. I played like that before the competition; still my nature, my character, my vision," Liu says. One of the major differences that sets his solo concerts apart from competition performances is that Liu chooses his own repertoire according to his own philosophy, and he prefers more "approachable" and less-performed "hidden gems". At his upcoming performances at the 51st Hong Kong Arts Festival, Liu will perform Chopin's Piano Concerto No 2 alongside the HK Phil, and stage his first solo concert in Hong Kong. Liu's carefully designed programme consists of four pieces, starting with two selections from his competition repertoire, Mazurka in F major, Op.5 and Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat minor, Op. 35, followed by Ravel's Miroirs, and ending with Liu's personal favourite, Réminiscences de Don Juan by Liszt. In his own words, Ravel's impressionistic piece bridges the gap between the Classical and Romantic composers, like a sorbet between two main courses.
Rising to instant stardom after his victory in the competition, Liu continues to live a normal life at his own pace, practising piano three to four hours and swimming every day, and occasionally karting. For his part, Liu does not let the piano take over his life, partly due to his nature, and for fear that he would either get bored with a constant routine or lose his drive for competing and performing. "Even the way I talk right now in an interview makes me think about the way I phrase on piano, and all these ideas are always regenerated and renewed, so in this way I think the art that I'm doing is not dying."
