Full Version Bio Cecilia Li

"Music - hearing the inaudible between the tones reveals an unknown world full of magic." Cecilia Li

The concert pianist Cecilia Li offers a manifold piano repertoire from classics to contemporary compositions. Her artistic skills cover soloistic and chamber musical piano concerts as well as music dramaturgy for the Tanz Atelier Wien, a laboratory for research in contemporary dance and music. The symbiosis of visual and acoustic art forms is of fundamental importance for her artistic work: architecture, fine arts, dance and music are made to interact, thereby creating a new work of art.

In 2004, Cecilia Li founded her own CD label shiuling records. Her aim is to publish recordings of the compositions she is playing uncut in order to preserve the musical flow without intervention. So every gap is part of the musical concept. Over the last decades, she has been focusing on various compositional oeuvres in a dialectical fashion: i.e. contrasting Friedrich Cerha and J.S. Bach, Giacinto Scelsi and W.A. Mozart, etc. Through the choice of specific music series – thematically based compositions from classic to modern music – she opens new soundscapes for the audience.

Cecilia Li was born in Taipei , Taiwan in 1957. At the age of 8 she started to study piano at the Kwang-Jen High School. It was the first experimental music class ever held in Taiwan , the teachers were Prof. Iman Wu and Prof. Robert Scholz. During this time, she won the first price at Taipei Music Contest. At the age of 14, Cecilia Li continued her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Mozarteum Salzburg, in Prof. Kurt Neumüller's concert class.

As early as 1973, Cecilia Li won prizes in solo and chamber music at the “Österreichs Jugend musiziert”. She was soloist in the opening concert of the international summer academy in Salzburg. With the age of 20 she graduated the concert class with distinction and honors from the Mozarteum and received the achievement award of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research.

Cecilia Li then played together with various Austrian ensembles such as Hagen Quartett, Heidi Litschauer (solo cellist of the Camerata Academia Salzburg and full professor at Salzburg 's Mozarteum University), Vincent Stadlmaier (Schubert Trio) and Monika Kammerlander (solo violinist of the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg). Also she took courses and coaching lessons with Tatjana Nikolaijewa, Norman Shetler, Meira Farkas and Sandor Végh.

Cecilia Li performed amongst others at solo/chamber music concerts at Taipei Opera Music Recital Hall, at the Grand Concert Hall Mozarteum in Salzburg, at the chamber music festival in Salzburg, at the residence concerts, “Jeunesse Austria”, at the Liszt Concert Hall Raiding and Palais Coburg Vienna. A very successful performance took place at Strovolos Theatre in Nicosia/Cyprus where she played in presence of 400 high standing persons, among them international ambassadors and ministers.

Besides her solo piano work, she established herself as a distinguished teacher and music advisor. Concerts, TV and radio recordings have been realized nationally (ORF) and internationally (TVTaiwan, NHK Japan). She also taught a master class at the University of Fu-Jen in Taipei in 1985.

In 1988, Cecilia Li founded Tanz Atelier Wien together with dancer and choreographer Sebastian Prantl. In this research centre for contemporary dance and music she is in charge of music concepts and plays leading parts in productions and projects of various kinds and various places such as Secession, Wiener Konzerthaus, Odeon, Universitätskirche, Academy of Sciences in Vienna and festivals e.g. Wien Modern, styriarte, 3rd Beijing Art Festival (China), Festival Autunno Danza (Sardinia), India Dance Festival (India), at the European Dance Festival Cyprus, at Festspielhaus St. Pölten.

CD recordings: “Bach Goldberg Variations” published in 1996 at Bayer Records – Amati, as well as „Debussy - 12 Préludes pour piano livre II“ and “Hommage à Erik Satie”, both published in 2004 at shiuling records.

Since 2009 Cecilia Li is co-author of the International ChoreoLab Austria (ICLA), a cooperation project between Tanz Atelier Wien and the Danube University Krems.

Since June 2011 Bösendorfer Piano Artist.