Volume 23 Issue 4 - December 2017 / January 2018

Q & A
FINDING
THE BALANCE
PIANIST
GEORGE LI
PAUL ENNIS
The 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition
produced a motherlode of talent, sparking concert
careers by each of its top four prizewinners. This past
March, Show One Productions brought gold medallist
Dmitry Masleev to Koerner Hall; on February 4 they will
complete the Koerner circle with George Li’s recital there.
Boston-born Li – the son of Chinese immigrants – shared
second place with Lithuanian-Russian pianist Lukas
Geniušas, whom Show One presented in a memorable
2016 Koerner Hall concert with fourth-place winner
Lucas Debargue of France.
A student of English Literature at Harvard now in his fourth year,
Li explained in an email exchange with me in mid-November that
his non-musical studies have affected his approach and led to a
deeper understanding of the music he plays, echoing what he told the
Harvard Gazette in September 2016: “With music, there’s a balancing
of different qualities and you have to have control and finesse and
technique. There’s always a fine line between too much control and
technique with being overly emotional, overindulgent. With literature,
it’s not always an outpouring of emotion. It never goes overboard. It’s
on the cusp of going overboard, but it never does.”
Elsewhere in this issue in his Editor’s Corner, DISCoveries editor
David Olds calls Li a “fabulous young performer” in his review of Li’s
debut CD, Live at the Mariinsky.
WN: How important a role did music play in your home
growing up?
GL: It was definitely a big part of my life ever since I was little. I was
always surrounded by music, whether it be listening to the classical
CANZONA
THE MUSIC SPEAKS
SUN DEC 3 - ISLAND |
MON DEC 4 - CITY
A collaboration of musicians
from the Toronto Symphony
Orchestra and the National
Arts Centre Orchestra.
Mendelssohn’s miraculous
String Octet in E Flat Major
Opus 20 and Brahms’s first
string sextet, Opus 18.
SAT JAN 27 - CITY |
SUN JAN 28 - ISLAND
TRIO INK
Yosuke Kawasaki, violin;
Wolfram Koessel, cello; and
Vadim Serebryany, piano;
play works by Schumann,
Brahms, and Shostakovich.
2017-18
CHAMBER MUSIC
SERIES
ON TORONTO
ISLAND at St Andrew
by the Lake Church:
2pm, brunch at 12:30,
by reservation.
IN THE CITY
at St. George the Martyr
Anglican Church,
197 John St., Toronto.
7:30pm
UPCOMING CONCERTS:
FEB 25/26, MAR 18/19, APR 15/16, MAY 27/28
SINGLE CONCERT TICKETS $25
SEASON TICKETS $150
With brunch (Island concerts only):
$45 (single concert) $270 (season)
reservations@canzona.org 416-822-0613
SIMON FOWLER
16 | December 2017 / January 18 thewholenote.com