And that’s a (95-page) wrap!
This dissertation has been 5+2+1 years (DMA+MM+GDP) in the making. It has been not just an extensively challenging research paper, but also a wonderfully fun, derpy, silly, heartfelt passion project. It has led me to places I would have never expected - so many creative experiments, collaborations, concert performances, and much more to come~ (horror-anime opera with Alice Ping Yee Ho still in the works!!!)
Read MoreVery excited to share that David and I are funded by the Canada Council to tour in China this May/June. This has been a longtime dream and deeply personal project for me to pay tribute to my immigrant parents and return to visit their hometowns in Hunan and Harbin. Thank you to the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing for inviting us. We will be featuring Alice Ping Yee Ho’s “Four Impressions of China”, Fuhong Shi’s “The Reed”, and premiering a new commission by Wendy Lee.
Read MoreLooking forward to being back at public work again. From hospitals to libraries to cafes to concert stages - all profoundly humbling, necessary work. Even in these uncertain times, with so many issues that seem larger than us, it is still precisely the right time to do what we do as artists, musicians - to plant tiny seeds of kindness, resilience, camaraderie. To “want to start again”. That’s the theme, of this year, of last, of every year we continue to relearn how to survive the pendulum of hope and despair. How to grow. Marching in circles, it seems. But not quite. There is a movement, a change, tiny variations. And we will reveal it. Listen.
Read MoreHope everyone is enjoying a warm and joyful peaceful holiday season! November and December have been such fulfilling months of chamber music. After the intensely demanding, solitary journey of October’s solo recital tour, it was such a treat to dive back into collaborative work.
Read MoreGood 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.
Read MoreAlexander 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.
Read More"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."
Read More“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.
Read MoreI’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.
Read More2 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.
Read More2023 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.
Read MoreExcited 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.
Read MoreFlying 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!
Read MoreThe darker side of fairy tales.
Read MoreHello 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.
Read MoreLeah 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”.
Read MoreRecipe 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.
Read MoreMay 29 - June 24 Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
6/2 - 6/3
Adjudicating the Nova Scotia Provincial Music Festival
6/7 @ 7:00 PM
Lamp’s “A Little Light Music”
Featuring the Verona Quartet, Tong Wang and Maitreyi Muralidharan
6/11 @ 2:30 PM
Schumann Quintet with the Verona Quartet
6/14 @ 7:00 PM
NOW Festival: Tong Wang & Maitreyi Muralidharan “Save Our Old Forests”
Duo Perdendosi presents a new special program exploring today’s highly prevalent issues: nature, destruction, and hope.
6/23 - 6/24
NOW Festival World Premiers
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, Alberta “Windwood Music Festival”“A Fair To Remember”
Read More7 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.
Read MoreIt’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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