Biography
Olivia En-Shi Liu, formerly Fang-Lin Liu, is a Taiwanese pianist who has recently achieved a Master of Music degree at the Royal Academy of Music under the guidance of William Fong. She has held numerous performances at churches throughout the UK and participated in several international competitions.
She enjoys taking part in chamber music groups, performing with singers, collaborating with dancers, and working with composers.
She participated in the Leeds Lieder Festival as a Young Artist in April this year, performing in several showcase recitals and masterclasses. During the week in Leeds, she gave the first ever performance of “She Walks the Blue and Yellow Lands” at the Composers & Poets Forum.
In 2018, Olivia En-Shi received a scholarship and commenced her Bachelor’s degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), where she studied under Aaron Shorr. During her studies in Scotland, she won the Jock Holden Memorial Mozart Prize at the conservatoire and performed Mozart Concerto No. 24 with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Chamber Orchestra. She achieved second place in a number of RCS competitions: the Governors Recital Prize, the William Leslie Meikle Piano Prize and the Peter Lindsay Miller Prize for Piano Duo.
In addition, Olivia is a passionate and patient piano teacher who is fond of working with her students on improving both their technical abilities and their passion for music. She designs bespoke lesson plans to help students navigate their path through music.
She is keen and ambitious as a pianist who enjoys collaboration with others, and is eager to continue her musical odyssey.
She was born in 2001 and started playing the piano at the age of 5. In 2015, she won first prize in the Los Angeles Gold Star Young Pianist Competition, and the next year she moved to the UK and studied, with a scholarship, at the Purcell School for Young Musicians under the tutelage of Tessa Nicholson. During this period, Olivia performed at the Fazioli Concert Hall in Italy, the Southbank Centre in London, and during the Proms at St Jude’s Church in London.
She has had masterclasses with Boris Berman, Ursula Oppens, Dmitri Alexeev, Bernard d’Ascoli, Meng-Chieh Liu, Fali Pavri, Julian Jacobson, Hee-Sung Joo and Christopher Hinterhuber.
She is particularly fond of Schubert and Schumann’s compositions; the sweetness and bitterness coupled with the composers’ imagery of nature results in pieces which have a certain fantastical element to them. She also enjoys the music of Medtner, Bortkiewicz and Prokofiev, and how they present a certain “Russian” darkness, via a range of sound effects and colours.
