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.
Tatler Asia: What Matters To Me: Concert Pianist Li Churen
Chong Seow Wei
8 JUL 2020
"The Singaporean pianist and educator wants to make classical music relevant to her generation"
The Singaporean pianist and educator wants to make classical music relevant to her generation
In the What Matters To Me series, a Generation T honouree describes what they do, why they do it, and why it matters.
As a toddler, Li Churen would pound her tiny fists on the keys of her family’s Yamaha Clavinova piano at home. Sensing her potential, her parents enrolled her in piano classes, leading Li to later hone her skills by taking part in international competitions and music festivals.
At age 16, she was offered the rare opportunity to read music at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, where she graduated three years later in 2015 as the youngest in her cohort. Since then, Li has lived, studied and performed in Europe as a concert pianist.
Here, she describes her musical journey and how she wants to make classical music relevant to her generation.
I find playing music deeply enjoyable. I relish the sensation of being one with my instrument and feeling the energy that courses through my body when I perform.
Music gives us the vocabulary to express the messiness and incomparable beauty of what it means to be human. From the sublime and the mundane, to the reverent and the cheeky. There's a misconception that classical music is boring and sure, it takes a little bit more effort to understand it than say, an Ed Sheeran song. But when you dig deep and get underneath the surface of the sounds, the rewards are numerous and fascinating.
Music gives us the vocabulary to express the messiness and incomparable beauty of what it means to be human
— Li Churen
The one question that underpins my work as a musician today is how we keep Western classical music—with its rich history and varied traditions—relevant, alive and vibrant. It applies to both the way we artists reach audiences and how we make sense of our own relationship with the past.
I've been fascinated with experimenting with the presentation of Western classical music. I've organised several projects in Singapore and the UK, including a concert at Singapore's iconic Zouk nightclub that I co-directed, co-produced and co-performed with mezzo-soprano Jade Tan Shi Yu. We wanted to take Western classical music out of the gilded cage of the concert hall and hold it in a subversive space such as a nightclub. We combined European art songs with an immersive and intimate staging format. The concert was titled “Skandalkonzert", after the historical 1913 concert of Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg, who antagonised audiences with his compositional premieres and caused a riot.
I hope to help shape a more open, inclusive and creative future for Western classical music
— Li Churen
Post-Covid-19, the global arts scene will be shaken up. It will move towards leaner models of production and perhaps there will be more introspective enquiry about the nature of art-making. I hope to help shape a more open, inclusive and creative future for Western classical music. To borrow the words of Joseph W Polisi, the former president of The Juilliard School, “Artists must be not only communicative through their art, but also knowledgeable about the intricacies of our society—politically, economically, socially—so that they can effectively work towards showing the power of the arts to a nation and its people”.