Solo Recital Recap "Towards the Flame"

Good evening, everyone. Thank you all for gathering here tonight to celebrate a special milestone with me - professionally and personally. This is my final doctoral recital, marking 8 years at McGill. This is also a deeply personal program. 

All these pieces are associated with some part of my past that I am still learning to come to terms with, some of the darkest moments I want to redefine, and also some of the most trying and most courageous moments I want to honour again. 

That being said, it’s funny how while preparing for this recital, a testament to my strength and growth, I’m again and again astonished and humbled by my limitations: how certain demons still come back, how we need to learn to live with them, face them again and again. 

So this program has become more of a story of courage. And acceptance. 

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"Towards the Flame" Program Notes

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) - Sonate pour piano no 1 en fa mineur, opus 6 / Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 6

Like a furious outcry against some unfathomable dark force, some inevitable tragic destiny, Scriabin’s First Sonata in F minor bursts open with a whirlwind of upwardly sweeping exclamations. Breathless, agitated, and impatient, this initial violent gesture suddenly diffuses into a series of inquisitive and hopeful major tonalities accompanied by flurries of glittering, bubbly left-hand textures before melting into an intimate, forlorn second theme full of sensual sighs and waves of spontaenous, surging desire. These intensifying lyrical phrases lead into a coda of triumphant fanfares in the relative major key of A-flat.

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"A Manic Ride Through Lollipop Hell" - Alice Ping Yee Ho

"What is understanding? 
Is it happiness, or unhappiness? 
Does it bring us closer, or push us apart? 
Perhaps it’s both.
A continuous process. 
A beautiful, painstaking attempt towards moments of happiness."

"To love, makes one solitary. 
To love, makes one strange. I was not that girl
worthy of your love. The more I was loved, 
The more I hated myself.
'Why could I not just be happy?' 
The more I was loved, the lonelier and stranger I became. To love, makes one solitary. 
To love, makes one strange."

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Labyrinth of Tears - Libretto

Labyrinth of Tears” is an original storyline from the Zenkora Universe that follows the adventures of The Flower Club, five wizardry schoolgirls from the prestigious New Verdecas Academy of Magical Arts. Four of the girls journey into the mind Labyrinth of their friend, Kansa Nightingale, in an attempt to rescue her from a deep, mysterious coma. Inside the ‘Labyrinth of Tears’, they discover the fantastical and absurd horrors of Kansa’s inner world, and must work together to solve the puzzles of the three peculiar identities guarding the Labyrinth - the Assassin, the Courtesan, and the Child. But more than just overcoming the trials, they must learn how to navigate and embrace the vulnerabilities, confusion, and paradoxes on this strange path to understanding love, friendship, and happiness.

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24/25 Season Announcements

I’m very excited to share that I will be touring with Debut Atlantic in the 2025/26 season, performing across some of my most treasured parts of Canada - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland from February 6-22, 2026.

This solo recital program “Towards the Flame” features Chopin, Scriabin, Stravinsky, and a new commission by Alice Ping Yee Ho, "A Manic Ride Through Lollipop Hell."

I will also be touring this program in October across Houston, Ottawa, and Montreal.

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"black sea, orange tree" album release!

2 weeks till album release! Read the full story here. It’s been a humbling project, almost 1 year in the making - exploring the lands of Turkey, meeting its generous and warm people, listening to their stories, their instruments, and collaborating with the wonderful Alice Ping Yee Ho to capture the sounds, fragrances, landscapes, and memories of my parent’s hometowns - Hunan and Heilongjiang.

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2024 Updates

2023 has taken us from Paris, Basel, Den Haag, Arlesheim, to Vienna, Budapest, Pesaro (Europe tour), back to Airdrie, Jasper (WMF Mini), across Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, New York, Providence, Washington DC, Apex (DP “Da Capo” tour), to Lunenburg (LAMP residency), to Seattle, to Bodrum, Ankara, Sivas, Trabzon (Turkey tour), to Rhodes, Athens, back to Airdrie (WMF 23), back to Montreal, Ottawa, Red Deer (RDSO), then to Houston, Apex, and finally … ending here once again at home, Airdrie.

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27e gala des Prix Opus

Excited to share that I have been selected as finalist for the Prix Spéciaux category “Inclusion et diversité Montréal” of the Gala Prix Opus Édition 27. The Gala will be held on February 4, 2024 at Salle Bourgie.

Many thanks to my family, friends, colleagues, mentors, and many dear supporters for being a part of my journey to continue bringing music to the world.

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November Dates

Flying back home to winter wonderland for a week to perform Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra musicians. Then returning for the first Skye’s Salon of the season, “The Tales that Stay With Us,” followed by a series of concerts with the newly formed Mountain Time Trio, a lecture recital with Duo Perdendosi for the McGill “Climate Crisis & Climate Actions” course, and an exciting collaboration between Le Pub Classique and the Sapphonix Collective!

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Fall 2023 Updates

Hello dear friends,

Happy September! I hope everyone has enjoyed a wonderful summer - whether adventurous or lazy, fruitful or restorative. Me, I have finally returned to my humble castle in the sky here in Montreal, and am getting ready for the year ahead.

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“Four Cities" and “Four Impressions of China" by Duo Incarnadine

Leah and I will be off to Turkey in less than 2 weeks for the first part of our documentary tour! We’ll be spending three weeks in Bodrum, Ankara, Sivas, and Trabzon exploring the culture and landscapes of the four cities portrayed in Fazil Say’s sonata for cello and piano. Our recording and mini tour (Montreal/Toronto) is scheduled for mid September and we’re aiming to release the album and documentary music videos by holidays of 2024! Featuring the world premiere of a deeply personal work written for us by Alice Ho, “Four Impressions of China”.

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DP at LAMP: "wanting to start again"

Recipe cards. Tree. Music.

Mementos, proof of the magic that we were a part of. That Wednesday night. The stories and energies exchanged there that reaches back so much longer, deeper than we can recall.

We both cried. Crying a lot doesn’t take away from the intensity of crying again, each time we are blessed and burdened by feeling this world, this music. I was fine for most of the time leading up to the concert, but that morning, while listening to the melodies of Wong’s “A Dream of the Motherland”, this wave of tenderness, of bitter painful emotion mixed with fire and ice and injustice and futile loving hopefulness - it all hit me. I knew what I wanted to say. Just another simple story, as always, the same simple story, that still needs to be told, vocalized, remembered, honoured, however briefly.

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Summer 2023 Updates

May 29 - June 24 Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

July 13 - 26 Bodrum, Ankara, Sivas, Trabzon, Turkey

Duo Incarnadine “Four Cities” documentary filming part 1: Turkey. Sandwiched between visits to Switzerland and Greece.

August 13 - 27 Airdrie, AlbertaWindwood Music FestivalA Fair To Remember”

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Strawberry, Asparagus, Transform! Tour 1 Complete.

7 cities, 8 concerts. Too many stories to count.

We’ve collected even more hearts, even more memories, mantras, silly inside jokes and chants and phrases ingrained in our collective spirit, the tiny gestures, habits, quirks, flaws that make us all the more mysteriously, freshly, curiously in love. Endlessly proud. Endless humbled.

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Hello Home

It’s quite simple, really.

Experiencing this music is about exploring what home means for each of us individually, and allowing ourselves to be moved collectively by that feeling. By the nostalgia, the joy and the pain, love and grief, happiness and sadness. Everything. Allowing us to notice and remember again what we miss, where we want to be, how beautiful that all is. Even if we don’t find the answers, even if we cannot return to that place, or if home was never a safe place to begin with … we can still all bond over this deep longing for home. That in itself is more than plenty.

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Windwood 2023 March Mini Edition and Duo Perdendosi Tour!

Oh Canada… It’s time.

Time to say hello, again. Hello, Airdrie, hello Rocky Mountains and prairies and wind and snow and trees and mom’s delicious feasts. Hello, home.

And also? Who better to come home with than my kindred spirit and ultimate partner in wild magicking, in music, in making dreams a reality, in the endless bewilderment of life. Duo Perdendosi, Maitreyi and I, will be embarking on a wondrous adventure the next half year.

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Paris - Basel - Den Haag - Budapest

Wrapping up a month of touring around Europe!

4 cities, 7 concerts. A kaleidoscope of different musical experiences, people experiences, challenges, risks, courage, resilience, joy, fire, light, warmth, magic, growth. Repeating the trust in what we love, what we do, what we chose to continue doing again and again, with infinite wonder and gratitude.

The smallest ripples matter. It’s all about opening hearts and listening. But what kind of listening? What is the art of listening? It’s profoundly complex. Increasingly difficult in our world to practice kind, humble, loving listening free from biases and prejudices. But that is a worthwhile challenge to face.

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Announcement: 2023 Projects! <3

I’m thrilled to share some announcements about the coming year! I’ll be writing about each individual project soon in more detail, but here’s an overview:

  1. Second Album: “我们Us (Live)”

  2. Duo Incarnadine: “Four Cities x2”

  3. Duo Perdendosi: “Homecoming”

  4. Windwood Music Festival: Season One

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