Brooklyn-based, Hong Kong-Canadian pianist and composer Arthur Siyun Li has emerged as an active performer, composer, and exponent of new and contemporary music. Winner of the Eisenberg-Fried Concerto Competition at the Manhattan School of Music (MSM), he made his concerto debut in October ‘23 with MSM’s OPUS 130 Orchestra and conductor David Chan performing Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra. Other recent performance highlights include a recital at the Salle de l’Institut in Orléans, France, as a quarterfinalist of the International Piano Competition of Orléans, and selections from John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.

As a winner of the Entraide Française Young Composers Competition, Li’s most recent work for string quartet was commissioned by the French non-profit and performed at Villa Albertine in New York. His orchestral work, enshrinement, for oboe, harp, piano, and string orchestra, was awarded the Carl Kanter Prize for Orchestral Composition at MSM in May ‘24. Li is a recipient of the Tactus Commission Prize.

Li begins his doctorate (D.M.A.) in Performance Practice at Cornell University this fall as a Sage Fellow and a teaching assistant, in the studio of pianist Xak Bjerken. Previously, he completed concurrent master’s degrees in performance and composition at MSM, where he was a student of pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine and composer/soprano Susan Botti, as well as an undergraduate degree in Music Theory and History at the University of Toronto. He has received mentorship from pianists Wha Kyung Byun, Dang Thai Son, Anthony de Mare, and Margaret Kampmeier, and from composers Reiko Füting, Chen Yi, and Chinary Ung. Li is an official Steinway Teacher and Educational Partner (STEP).