JIAYING KATY LI

Jiaying (Katy) Li is a composer, pianist, music arranger, improviser, and educator whose music mainly focuses on amplifying the microscopic sound of the instrument itself, and combines electronic music with her cross-cultural background to create a poetic vocabulary and multi-sensory enjoyment. While Katy has a lengthy repertoire of solo, vocal, percussion, chamber, symphony, electronic music, film scoring, etc. In addition, her works have been commissioned and premiered by numerous performers and ensembles all over the world, including JACK Quartet, MAMMOTH trio, Austin Wulliman, Alex Sopp, Suzan Peeters, James Alexandar, and have been performed in Carnegie Hall, Norfolk Music Festival in Yale, Atlantic Music Festival, New Music on the Point Music Festival, St. John's Concert Hall, and Royal Danish Conservatory of Music.

Katy is the recipient of the “Martinu Composition Prize” for her orchestral piece called “A Truce Within” in 2022 premiered by Mannes Orchestra. The same year, her solo concert was also held in New York City and was widely praised. Katy’s piece called “Tide” was nominated for the ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, and received thousands of views on YouTube. At the end of the year, she was commissioned by “The Modern Collective” in New York City.

Katy began to learn piano at the age of five and showed her sensitivity and talent to music and timbre since childhood. She is currently pursuing a fully-funded master's degree at The Shepherd School of Music Rice University and holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from Mannes School of Music. Since 2018, she has been teaching piano, theory entrance exam, and ABRSM theory whose age of students from 4-20 years old in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese fluently. Katy not only has rich teaching experience and unique methods but also patience and understanding for the students has helped hundreds of students achieve ideal results. Enthusiastically participated in various social welfare activities, served as the judge of the first "New York Star Children's Art Competition and 2020 New York International Cultural Celebration Selection Competition", and held two of her student piano concerts in 2022 and 2023.