Singaporean pianist Churen redefines classical pianism by blending different musical genres in her personal musical voice. Hailed as “the closest thing I know to be the ‘complete’ pianist” in Singapore by a leading music critic and a “well rounded, versatile performer” by another, she tours internationally as a classical recitalist and orchestral soloist, playing her own compositions and improvisations in concert, in addition to an eclectic repertoire from ranging from Chopin and Debussy, to Michael Jackson, John Williams, and George Crumb.
Praised for her “poise, expressiveness and keyboard abilities”, she opened the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s 2022/23 season in July ‘22 with Grieg’s Piano Concerto conducted by Han-Na Chang. Churen has also been featured in the Singapore International Piano Festival and Singapore International Festival of Arts. In the same year, her debut album Ephemory revealed a composer-pianist of contemporary and post-modern sensibilities adept in a variety of musical languages, delivering original takes on well-known classical themes as well as her own original compositions. In 2018, Churen produced and performed in a concert at Singapore’s well known Zouk nightclub, juxtaposing the Western art songs within a pop culture setting. She was among the ten pianists selected in 2018 to participate and perform in the Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music, and in the same year, at the prestigious Roche Continents programme in Salzburg, an interdisciplinary programme of workshops and lectures in the arts and in science.
Graduating at the age of 19 with a Bachelor’s Degree from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (National University of Singapore) as the youngest in her cohort, Churen subsequently studied with well-known pianist Peter Frankl and Hung-Kuan Chen at the Yale School of Music where she obtained a Master’s Degree. She later went on to obtain a Master of Philosophy in Music from Cambridge University with a dissertation on George Crumb. Since then, Churen continues to be active in the performance and production of new music, working in inter-disciplinary collaborations and across genres.
A prize winner at numerous international piano competitions, Churen has also been invited to perform at music festivals and recital halls all over the world, often appearing in partnership with luxury brands such as Cartier, Chanel and Richard Mille. She was also honoured in Singapore Tatler's Generation-T List in 2018. In 2015, she performed as soloist in a tour of Macau and Hong Kong with the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music Orchestra, at the invitation of Singapore’s High Consulate in Hong Kong as part of Singapore’s 50th jubilee celebrations of independence. Other concerto engagements include performances with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Cambridge University Orchestra, Klassische Budapest Philharmonic, Metropolitan Festival Orchestra Singapore, Mikhail Jora Philharmonic of Bacau and National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
She is also the recipient of prestigious grants, including the Tan Kah Kee Postgraduate Scholarship (2015), the FJ Benjamin-Singapore Symphony Orchestra Bursary (2013) and the National Arts Council Arts Scholarship (2011-15).
Churen currently teaches at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music as an Artist Faculty and was previously an Academic Faculty at Yale-NUS College. She is the founder of the Classical Music Adventures initiative, a series of interactive classical music shows that work with community venues.
Her past teachers include Albert Tiu, Bernard Lanskey, Paul Liang, Peter Frankl and Hung-Kuan Chen.
Straits Times Singapore: Orchestra delivers brilliant music befitting Singapore's 50th anniversary
Oliver Chou
2 OCT 2015
"But the sobriety quickly dissipated when Li Churen, 20, delivered an energetic reading of Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto. A conservatory alumni who is now a Yale postgraduate student, the young Singaporean showed extraordinary skill, displaying a sense of urgency in her playing that Lai had to stay vigilant to keep up with. Regrettably, the clapping was not sustained enough to get an encore from the brilliant pianist."
Celebrating SG50
The Conservatory Orchestra
City Hall concert hall
Wednesday, September 30
A vibrant orchestra of 80 young musicians from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music was a showcase of Singapore's coming of age in the musical arts at its debut concert in Hong Kong. Under the baton of Jason Lai, a former conductor in Hong Kong, the show opened a new chapter in the tale of the two cities. But lending an edge was the fine discipline the Singaporean band executed, which would call for some quality ensemble playing by local musicians to match.
This being part of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Singapore's independence, an official speech would have kicked off the concert, but in lieu of that, the orchestra played its historic first note in Hong Kong with Empyrean Lights by Ho Chee Kong, the school's head of composition. From the atmospheric opening on subtle cello notes, the audience was taken on a sentimental journey that, at the end, was reduced to solo trumpet calls the composer said "solemnly weave an epitaph in honour of a great statesman, Mr Lee Kuan Yew".
But the sobriety quickly dissipated when Li Churen, 20, delivered an energetic reading of Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto. A conservatory alumni who is now a Yale postgraduate student, the young Singaporean showed extraordinary skill, displaying a sense of urgency in her playing that Lai had to stay vigilant to keep up with. Regrettably, the clapping was not sustained enough to get an encore from the brilliant pianist.
Those who stayed for the second half were rewarded with the magnificence of Sibelius' second symphony, where the strings continued to shine as the forte of the band. The passionate players brought the evening to a smiling close with a vivacious Stand Up for Singapore, performed in response to rapturous applause.