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Bruce Liu presents Lunaris, a nocturnal journey through piano music

With his new <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/products/bruce-liu-lunaris-117285?_pos=3&amp;_sid=b24665756&amp;_ss=r">album </a><a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/products/bruce-liu-lunaris-117285?_pos=3&amp;_sid=b24665756&amp;_ss=r">Lunaris</a>, <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/collections/bruce-liu">Bruce Liu</a> invites listeners on an atmospheric journey through moonlight, dreams and musical imagination. The Canadian pianist brings together familiar masterpieces, rarely heard compositions and contemporary sound worlds in a personal recital programme. Spanning several centuries, the works come together without losing the album&rsquo;s underlying narrative thread.
Lunaris was released on 7 August 2026 by Deutsche Grammophon and is available on CD, 2LP and in signed editions.
<h3>Lunaris brings together Beethoven, Chopin and modern sound worlds</h3>
At the heart of Bruce Liu&rsquo;s new album are two of Ludwig van Beethoven&rsquo;s most famous piano sonatas: the &ldquo;Moonlight Sonata&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Waldstein Sonata&rdquo;. While the former, with its mysterious calm, immediately evokes the nocturnal atmosphere suggested by the album&rsquo;s title, the &ldquo;Waldstein Sonata&rdquo; brings energy, movement and dazzling virtuosity to the programme. These two major works are complemented by Chopin&rsquo;s Nocturne Op. 27 No. 2, Debussy&rsquo;s R&ecirc;verie and a Bach prelude arranged by Alexander Siloti.
With &ldquo;Tokka&rdquo; by <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/collections/agnes-obel">Agnes Obel</a>, Ligeti&rsquo;s rhythmically striking &eacute;tude &ldquo;Fanfares&rdquo; and John Cage&rsquo;s atmospheric piano piece &ldquo;Dream&rdquo;, Bruce Liu expands the traditional recital with modern and unexpected colours. As a result, Lunaris unfolds as a varied musical arc, moving between contemplative stillness and extroverted virtuosity.
<h3>Bruce Liu reveals a particularly personal side on Lunaris</h3>
Bruce Liu sees the album not simply as a collection of favourite works, but as an invitation to listen in a different way. Poetry, painting and the mystery of the night provide the conceptual backdrop for a programme shaped by moods and transitions between sound worlds.
Alongside familiar compositions, the album also brings lesser-recorded works into focus, including Federico Mompou&rsquo;s variations on &ldquo;Au clair de la lune&rdquo; and Scriabin&rsquo;s Fourth Piano Sonata. They add further colours to the album and underline Liu&rsquo;s interest in music that seems, for a moment, to dissolve the boundaries of time and space.
<h3>From Chopin competition winner to versatile musical storyteller</h3>
Since winning the International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021, Bruce Liu has become one of the most sought-after pianists of his generation on the international stage. His interpretations are distinguished by technical ease, tonal elegance and a spontaneous musical approach. His special affinity with <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/collections/frederic-chopin">Chopin</a> remains audible on Lunaris, but the album broadens its perspective considerably beyond Romantic piano repertoire. Works by <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/collections/beethoven">Beethoven</a>, <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/collections/johann-sebastian-bach">Bach</a>, Debussy, Mompou, Ligeti, Scriabin, Cage and Agnes Obel reveal Liu as a versatile curator of musical programmes, intuitively connecting different eras.
<h3>Lunaris on CD, vinyl and in signed editions</h3>
Bruce Liu's Lunaris album is available in several formats, appealing to both CD listeners and vinyl collectors. Alongside the standard <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/products/bruce-liu-lunaris-117285">CD</a> and the <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/products/bruce-liu-lunaris-117289">black 2LP edition</a>, signed art card editions are also available. A <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/products/bruce-liu-kopie-lunaris-117296">limited signed Fan Edition</a> is also offered, bringing together the album&rsquo;s CD and vinyl contents.
Discover the different editions of Lunaris in the DG Store and choose your preferred version. Released on 7 August 2026, Bruce Liu&rsquo;s piano album is now available on CD and vinyl. Find all available editions in the <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/de-de/search?q=lunaris">DG Store</a>.

Bruce Liu Explores Night, Moonlight and Inner Worlds on Lunaris

&ldquo;Liu&rsquo;s interpretation blended poetic sensitivity with technical finesse&rdquo; Bachtrack, reviewing Tchaikovsky&rsquo;s&nbsp;The Seasons&nbsp;at Carnegie Hall, January 2025
Lunaris&nbsp;is a diverse and poetic exploration of the symbolic potential of night-time
It&nbsp;traces a narrative arc from Chopin&rsquo;s Nocturne, Op.&nbsp;27 No.&nbsp;2 to Cage&rsquo;s&nbsp;Dream, via music by Beethoven, Debussy and Scriabin, among others
The album will be released on 7&nbsp;August 2026
&ldquo;For me,&nbsp;Lunaris&nbsp;is about a state of being. It is a nocturnal atmosphere and a space for introspection and quiet radiance&rdquo;
Bruce Liu
Chinese-Canadian pianist&nbsp;Bruce Liu&nbsp;won the&nbsp;International Chopin Piano Competition&nbsp;in 2021, aged just 24, signing with&nbsp;Deutsche Grammophon&nbsp;the following year. Since then, exemplary performances at the world&rsquo;s most prestigious venues and acclaimed recordings for the Yellow Label have established him as one of the best-known classical artists of his generation. His debut studio album,&nbsp;Waves: Music by Rameau &middot; Ravel &middot; Alkan, was followed by&nbsp;The Seasons, which garnered similarly glowing reviews.
Now Liu is set to showcase both his versatility and his inventive approach to programming with his latest album,&nbsp;Lunaris, a richly varied collection of works associated with night-time and the moon. &ldquo;The night is the moment when reflection and creative energy meet,&rdquo; notes the pianist. &ldquo;The idea of&nbsp;Lunaris&nbsp;came to me as a word that sounds both familiar and mysterious. The root, &lsquo;luna&rsquo;, immediately evokes the moon, the night and a certain kind of light that is indirect and deeply intimate. It describes those hours when the external world becomes quiet and the inner world opens a space for imagination, for sensitivity, and for a different perception of time.&rdquo;
Alongside core repertoire works such as Beethoven&rsquo;s &ldquo;Moonlight&rdquo; and &ldquo;Waldstein&rdquo; Sonatas, Scriabin&rsquo;s Fourth Sonata and Debussy&rsquo;s&nbsp;R&ecirc;verie, the album includes gems by J.S.&nbsp;Bach, Mompou, Cage, Ligeti and Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel.&nbsp;Lunaris&nbsp;will be released on CD, on vinyl and digitally on&nbsp;7&nbsp;August 2026. Both the vinyl and digital versions include two additional tracks: &ldquo;Hivernale&rdquo; from Hahn&rsquo;s&nbsp;Le rossignol &eacute;perdu&nbsp;and the first of Schoenberg&rsquo;s&nbsp;6 kleine Klavierst&uuml;cke. A first digital single,&nbsp;R&ecirc;verie, will be available digitally from&nbsp;29&nbsp;May, with the final movement from the &ldquo;Moonlight&rdquo; Sonata following on&nbsp;26&nbsp;June, and Mompou&rsquo;s&nbsp;Glossa sobre &ldquo;Au clair de la lune&rdquo;&nbsp;out on&nbsp;17&nbsp;July.
In the months leading up to the Chopin Competition, Bruce Liu found that many of his best musical ideas came to him in his dreams, and now, as a touring artist, he frequently finds himself working late at night. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s often the only time that silence and concentration, in the sense of timelessness, are possible,&rdquo; he says. It was this experience of working in the small hours that in part inspired the idea of an album about moonlight and dreams, darkness and daybreak.
Bruce was also influenced by the poetry of Baudelaire and Verlaine, the nocturnal landscapes of Friedrich, the interiors of Hammersh&oslash;i, Dal&iacute;&rsquo;s&nbsp;The Persistence of Memory&nbsp;and, in particular, Magritte&rsquo;s&nbsp;The Empire of Light. &ldquo;During the whole process I was thinking in very visual terms,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;The Magritte immediately felt like a visual mirror of the album. The coexistence of night and day, and the space where light can exist within the night, became a very strong poetic key to the concept. In all this, what matters to me is that the inner landscape becomes infinite.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Liu based&nbsp;Lunaris&nbsp;on a central &ldquo;constellation&rdquo; of works by Beethoven, Scriabin and Chopin, adding further pieces that resonated with them in terms of colour and atmosphere. The resulting sequence of &ldquo;inner landscapes&rdquo; forms a clear trajectory &ldquo;from the human, intimate world towards something luminous, from earth to inner cosmos&rdquo;.
He opted to open the album with Chopin&rsquo;s Op. 27 No.&nbsp;2 because, through its key signature, it shares a &ldquo;gravitational centre&rdquo; with the following work, the &ldquo;Moonlight&rdquo; Sonata &ndash; D flat and C sharp are enharmonic equivalents, &ldquo;but the emotional transformation between them feels like a second creation&rdquo;. Then, after Debussy&rsquo;s&nbsp;R&ecirc;verie, comes the shift from the human to the &ldquo;transparent and impersonal&rdquo; aspect of night-time, &nbsp;with Siloti&rsquo;s arrangement of a Bach prelude.
Sharing the latter&rsquo;s sense of luminosity and suspension are Agnes Obel&rsquo;s&nbsp;Tokka&nbsp;&ndash; a work whose repeating notes conjure &ldquo;a kind of timeless breathing&rdquo; &ndash; and Mompou&rsquo;s two equally delicate takes on the folk song&nbsp;Au clair de la lune. &ldquo;In an album that moves between very well-known works, it was important to have these moments of intimate revelation,&rdquo; says Liu.
Both the &ldquo;Waldstein&rdquo; (also known as the &ldquo;Aurora&rdquo;, or &ldquo;Dawn&rdquo;) and Scriabin&rsquo;s Fourth Sonata take us out of darkness and into the light. Liu had always wanted to record the Scriabin: &ldquo;Although it&rsquo;s not a nocturnal piece in the traditional sense, it represents that moment when the nocturnal world opens into something cosmic and visionary.&rdquo;
Lunaris&nbsp;ends with Cage&rsquo;s hypnotic&nbsp;Dream: &ldquo;After the whole journey of the album,&nbsp;Dream&nbsp;feels like a place where gravity fully disappears. So I chose it as the final piece because it does not close the journey but leaves it open.&rdquo;
Bruce Liu will perform repertoire from&nbsp;Lunaris&nbsp;at a number of recitals this summer: full touring details can be found&nbsp;<a href="https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/bruce-liu/on-tour">here</a>.

Bruce Liu Presents His Second Studio Album

Tchaikovsky: The Seasons comes out on 1 November 2024
&ldquo;He played with feline agility and lightness of touch. But &hellip; he can also take on a muscularity that turns sensitive phrasing into tintinnabular resonance&hellip;&rdquo;
The New York Times reviewing Liu&rsquo;s debut with the New York Philharmonic
Listen to &ldquo;June&rdquo; <a href="http://dgt.link/bruceliu-seasons">here</a> and watch the video <a href="https://de-grammophon.cimediacloud.com/r/MJ4dwlndujwD">here</a>
&ldquo;Recording The Seasons gave me a moment to explore some personal emotion&rdquo;
Bruce Liu
Deutsche Grammophon is delighted to announce the release of the second studio album from Bruce&nbsp;Liu. Following the huge success of Waves, the exploration of French keyboard music that recently earned the pianist a &ldquo;Young Talent of the Year&rdquo; OPUS KLASSIK award and has helped him achieve streaming figures of over 70&nbsp;million in the last three years, Liu has chosen to focus on the intimate and expressive solo piano music of Tchaikovsky. Earlier this year, at the Siemens-Villa in Berlin, he recorded The Seasons, a set of 12 character pieces, as well as the Romance, Op. 5, which appears as a bonus track on the CD, and a further five salon pieces which appear on the Deluxe Edition of the album.
Tchaikovsky: The Seasons is released digitally, on CD and on vinyl on 1 November 2024. Special editions of both the LP and the Deluxe Edition CD, complete with signed art card, will be available exclusively from the DG Store. A first digital taster track, &ldquo;June&rdquo;, will be released on 30&nbsp;August, together with a performance video, with &ldquo;August&rdquo; following on 27 September and &ldquo;May&rdquo; on 11&nbsp;October. A performance video for &ldquo;October&rdquo; will come out on the same day as the album.
Bruce Liu shot to fame in 2021 when he won the International Chopin Competition. Since then, his life has been a whirlwind of touring, media appearances and the occasional chance to mix music with his other great passion, sport &ndash; notably with his recent recording of the orchestral version of Fire, the official Euro 2024 song, produced by Italian trio Meduza. Having spent little time at home, or even on his own, he was particularly attracted to the Tchaikovsky solo piano repertoire, not only because of its richly poetic idiom, but also because he found the process of learning the pieces on this album helped him find moments of calm and took him into a new musical world.
As Liu notes, while The Seasons is Tchaikovsky&rsquo;s most famous solo piano work, it was in fact aimed at amateur pianists: the 12 pieces were commissioned by the Russian music journal Nuvellist and printed one at a time in monthly issues throughout the year 1876, prefaced with lines from a pertinent poem. Given their origin, the challenge of playing these pieces lies not in their technical difficulty, but in bringing out their deeper meaning. &ldquo;Because there are comparatively few notes, you have to care about every one of them,&rdquo; explains Liu. &ldquo;Each note must really speak.&rdquo;
&ldquo;What&rsquo;s so special about the work,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;is that it&rsquo;s so intimate, as if Tchaikovsky were speaking to himself when he wrote the pieces. It combines the folk element that inspired his ballets with the brilliance and flamboyance found in his concertos. More than that, it has a thoughtfulness and calmness at its core.&rdquo;
The lively months in The Seasons, such as &ldquo;August: The Harvest&rdquo;, with its sense of busy activity, or the celebratory &ldquo;December: Christmas&rdquo;, form a contrast with the more pensive tone of much of the set. Liu observes that this may have something to do with Russia&rsquo;s vast landscapes and long winters giving both cause for loneliness and time for self-reflection. Having grown up in Canada, he knows something about such things &ndash; unlike Tchaikovsky, however, Liu is a natural optimist. &ldquo;In &lsquo;October&rsquo; we hear melancholy, perhaps at the thought of winter coming, but in Canada it&rsquo;s a beautiful month with a lot of colourful leaves.&rdquo;
The most famous piece in the set, and the one Liu heard first as a child, is &ldquo;June: Barcarolle&rdquo;. It reminds him of a Chopin nocturne, with its stable left hand part allowing the right hand great freedom up and down the keyboard. The same is true of the Romance, Op. 5, which has an improvisatory feel. Continuing the theme, Tchaikovsky&rsquo;s own Nocturne, Op. 10 No. 1 and his Un poco di Chopin are among&nbsp;the five additional tracks included in the Deluxe Edition of the album, alongside the Valse sentimentale, Op. 51 No. 2 Rachmaninoff&rsquo;s transcription of the Lullaby, Op.&nbsp;16 No.&nbsp;1 and Earl Wild&rsquo;s transcription of the &ldquo;Dance of the Four Swans&rdquo; from Swan Lake.
&nbsp;
Bruce Liu will perform The Seasons at a series of concerts in the winter of the 2024-25 season: 27 November &ndash; Liederhalle, Stuttgart &middot; 1 December &ndash; Concertgebouw, Amsterdam 3 December &ndash; Th&eacute;&acirc;tre des Champs-&Eacute;lys&eacute;es, Paris 17 January &ndash; Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Kingston, Canada 19 January &ndash; Royal Conservatory, Toronto &middot; 24 January &ndash; Carnegie Hall, New York 27 January &ndash; Prinzregententheater, Munich &middot; 29 January &ndash; Musikverein, Vienna 30 January &ndash; Rudolf-Oetker-Halle, Bielefeld &middot; 31 January &ndash; Frankfurter Hof Mainz

Bruce Liu’s Waves: Music by Satie

The much-anticipated debut studio album from Bruce Liu, winner of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition, was released by Deutsche Grammophon to critical acclaim in November 2023. Waves: Music by Rameau &middot; Ravel &middot; Alkan focused on three composers who played a part in the evolution of keyboard music in France between the 18th and early 20th centuries. The vinyl and limited-edition deluxe versions featured bonus tracks by a&nbsp; fourth composer: Erik Satie. Liu&rsquo;s readings of his Gnossiennes are now available as a digital album &ndash; Waves: Music by Satie. Out now, it presents two performances of all six works &ndash; the original grand piano versions and newly recorded upright piano interpretations. A video for No. 4, Lent (grand piano version) will be premiered on the DG YouTube channel at 3pm (CEST) today.
The eccentric and iconoclastic Parisian composer Satie invented the title Gnossienne for six deceptively simple short works for solo piano he wrote between 1890 and 1897. Full of new and unexpected colours, with a sometimes oriental feel, they may have been influenced by the eastern music Satie heard at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Bruce Liu, who was himself born in Paris, creates two distinctive but equally captivating soundworlds here with his grand and upright piano versions &ndash; from the richer tones of the former to the more intimate, hushed sounds of the latter. Both versions capture the purity and restraint of Satie&rsquo;s pianistic style.
Waves: Music by Satie has been released on the eve of the knockout stage of UEFA Euro 2024 &ndash; and Bruce Liu&rsquo;s piano is part of the soundtrack to the championship. As immersed as he is in his career as a professional musician, Liu is also passionate about sport. Having performed as part of the annual UEFA European Club Football Season Kick-Off event in Monte Carlo last August, he recently recorded a special rendition of Fire, the official Euro 2024 song &ndash; a collaboration between Italian producer trio Meduza (Luca de Gregorio, Mattia Vitale and Simone Giani), US band OneRepublic and German singer-songwriter Leony. The orchestral version, it too produced by Meduza, has accompanied the teams as they emerged from the tunnels at stadiums around Germany over the last two weeks.

Bruce Liu Announces His Debut Studio Album

Victory at the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition in October 2021 turned Bruce Liu into a worldwide sensation. Deutsche Grammophon&rsquo;s live album of his competition recordings was released to rave reviews the following month, and the Canadian-Chinese pianist became an exclusive DG artist in March 2022. He released a series of Rameau and Chopin singles in 2022, and an acclaimed interpretation of J.S.&nbsp;Bach&rsquo;s French Suite No.&nbsp;5 in April this year (&ldquo;[a] carefully conceived and superbly played reading&rdquo; ClassicalMusic.com). As a result, he has already amassed over 25&nbsp;million streams across all platforms.
Liu has now recorded his much-anticipated debut studio album, its repertoire spanning two centuries of French keyboard music and including two works new to the DG catalogue. Waves: Music by Rameau &middot; Ravel &middot; Alkan, featuring liner notes by Gramophone editor James Jolly, comes out digitally, on CD and vinyl (2&nbsp;LPs), and as a signed limited-edition deluxe version on 3&nbsp;November 2023. Three singles with performance videos will be released in advance of the album: the Gavotte from Rameau&rsquo;s Suite in A&nbsp;minor on 18&nbsp;August &ndash; coinciding with Liu&rsquo;s Hollywood Bowl debut; &ldquo;Une barque sur l&rsquo;oc&eacute;an&rdquo; from Ravel&rsquo;s Miroirs on 22&nbsp;September; and the Menuets from Rameau&rsquo;s Suite in G&nbsp;major on 20&nbsp;October.
Since winning the Chopin Competition Bruce Liu has become renowned for his breathtaking, charismatic live performances. Recording an entire studio album therefore posed a different challenge, but one he has relished. &ldquo;For me, it&rsquo;s in a studio that you can really make your own puzzle,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like making a piece of art, putting everything together.&rdquo;
The Paris-born pianist has taken a historical approach to his repertoire choices, focusing on three French composers who played a part in the evolution of keyboard music between the 18th and early 20th centuries. From the extensive output of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) he plays excerpts from the Pi&egrave;ces de clavessin and Nouvelles suites de pi&egrave;ces de clavecin, including programmatic works such as La poule and Les sauvages, as well as dance movements. Rameau was of course writing before the invention of the piano, and Liu has spent time studying with harpsichordists to refine the subtleties of his interpretations.
A celebrity in his own day, virtuoso pianist Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-88) wrote almost exclusively for his own instrument. Liu discovered his fiendishly difficult music when he was a student and was keen to introduce it to a wider audience. Both the exuberant Le festin d&rsquo;&Eacute;sope and the peaceful Barcarolle are new additions to DG&rsquo;s catalogue.
From the 20th century, Liu has chosen Miroirs by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Several of the suite&rsquo;s five movements reflect the nature theme that runs through this album, whose title picks up both on this &ndash; notably Alkan&rsquo;s Barcarolle and Ravel&rsquo;s &ldquo;Une barque sur l&rsquo;oc&eacute;an&rdquo; &ndash; and on Liu&rsquo;s spontaneous style: &ldquo;The sea is always changing,&rdquo; he notes. &ldquo;And my approach to the music I play is never fixed.&rdquo;
Live audiences can enjoy the instinctive music-making captured on Waves at venues around the globe, with Miroirs and music by Rameau forming part of this exciting pianist&rsquo;s recital repertoire for the 2023-24 season.

Bruce Liu Plays Bach

Having released a series of Rameau and Chopin e-singles in 2022, pianist Bruce Liu now showcases his extraordinary talent in a brand-new recording for Deutsche Grammophon of Johann Sebastian Bach&rsquo;s French Suite No.&nbsp;5 in G&nbsp;major, BWV&nbsp;816. Liu&rsquo;s interpretation will be available to stream or download from this Friday, 14 April 2023.
Bach wrote this suite, one of a set of six, in the early 1720s, possibly as a wedding present for his second wife, Anna Magdalena. The collection later became known as the &ldquo;French Suites&rdquo;, but the name is misleading, given that each work contains movements inspired by dances from various national traditions. No.&nbsp;5, for example, includes a German Allemande, a French Courante, a Spanish Sarabande and an Irish/Scottish Gigue.
The different idioms of these dances are all captured in Liu&rsquo;s performance. His trademark spontaneity, along with a delightful sense of energy and precision of articulation, can be heard in faster movements such as the Courante and Gigue. By contrast, the Sarabande is noble and sensitive, while the rhythms of the Loure are elegantly phrased. All seven movements are in the key of G&nbsp;major which, for Bruce Liu, inspires a &ldquo;feeling of lyrical, poetic tenderness&rdquo;.
He will perform Bach&rsquo;s French Suite No.&nbsp;5 at the Rheingau Musik Festival and Festival de Saint-Paul de Vence Classique &amp; Jazz this summer (23/25&nbsp;July 2023). A major highlight of his schedule before then is his New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall on 19 May, at which he will present a programme of works by Chopin, as well as Liszt&rsquo;s R&eacute;miniscences de Don Juan.
Bruce Liu achieved worldwide fame in October 2021 when he won the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition, becoming the first Canadian ever to take first prize in the long history of this most prestigious event. He signed an exclusive agreement with Deutsche Grammophon the following March. DG&rsquo;s album of recordings made live during various stages of the Chopin Competition, released in November 2021, had already been met with huge critical acclaim, Gramophone calling it &ldquo;one of the most distinguished Chopin recitals of recent years, full of maturity, character and purpose&rdquo;.

Deutsche Grammophon Signs Bruce Liu on World Piano Day

&nbsp;
Berlin, 29 March 2022. Deutsche Grammophon is delighted to mark World Piano Day by announcing the signing of an exclusive agreement with Bruce Liu. The 24-year-old Canadian pianist shot &ldquo;from near obscurity to rock-star status in the classical music world&rdquo; (The Globe and Mail) after winning the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition last autumn, since when his performances worldwide have been showered with critical acclaim. &ldquo;[He] caused a sensation with a recital that married tradition with originality,&rdquo; said ResMusica of his Paris debut at the Th&eacute;&acirc;tre des Champs-&Eacute;lys&eacute;es in January. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t always know where Bruce Liu is taking you, but you feel compelled to follow him.&rdquo;
In October 2021 Bruce Liu became the first Canadian to win the Chopin Competition. Delayed by a year because of the pandemic, the 18th edition witnessed a particularly high level of playing. Having made the most of the lockdowns by both reading about Chopin and refreshing his musical palate with works by other composers, Liu continued thinking up new ideas about his interpretations until the very last minute backstage. He also chose not to listen to his fellow competitors, in order to focus on his own performances. His approach paid off &ndash; although he was the last of the twelve finalists to perform, the freshness of his reading of the Concerto in E&nbsp;minor won him a standing ovation that lasted several minutes.
Working in partnership with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Deutsche Grammophon was soon able to issue an album of live recordings captured during the various stages of the competition. The release has earned rave reviews, with Gramophone calling it &ldquo;one of the most distinguished Chopin recitals of recent years, full of maturity, character and purpose&rdquo;, while Classics Today praised Liu&rsquo;s &ldquo;awesomely effortless virtuosity [which] consistently oozes charisma and insouciance&rdquo;.
To mark his signing to the Yellow Label, Deutsche Grammophon will release Liu&rsquo;s recording of Chopin&rsquo;s Nocturne in C&nbsp;sharp minor, KK&nbsp;IVa/16 as an e-single on 1&nbsp;April. Further e-singles will follow throughout 2022, and the pianist is also now planning two future albums. One will have a French theme, with repertoire including Chopin and Rameau, reflecting Liu&rsquo;s desire to explore the music of his birthplace and his personal connections with France. The second will feature Tchaikovsky&rsquo;s Concerto No.2, the work with which he made his UK debut earlier this month (&ldquo;There can&rsquo;t be many pianists in the early stages of their international careers with that huge, daunting work in their repertoire, but apparently Liu has been playing it for a number of years, and the tireless confidence with which he launched into its cascades of figuration suggested an easy familiarity with it.&rdquo; The Guardian)
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m thrilled to be joining DG &ndash; I love its sense of family!&rdquo; says Bruce Liu. &ldquo;I hope becoming part of that family will give me plenty of opportunities to collaborate with some very talented artists from different musical fields and backgrounds, as well as working with the great team who produced my Chopin Competition album. I can&rsquo;t wait to see what the future holds.&rdquo;
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re very excited to welcome Bruce to the Yellow Label,&rdquo; adds Dr Clemens Trautmann, President Deutsche Grammophon. &ldquo;The Chopin Competition and all the concerts he has given since have shown the world an intelligent and dynamic young artist whose pianism, imagination and spontaneity are simply electrifying. He joins fellow Canadian artists Emily D&rsquo;Angelo, Jan Lisiecki and Yannick N&eacute;zet-S&eacute;guin here at DG &ndash; proof, if such were needed, that Canada today is clearly a hotbed of musical talent.&rdquo;
Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu was born to Chinese parents in Paris in 1997, and moved with his father to Montreal at the age of six. He speaks fluent Mandarin and grew up surrounded by Chinese culture, but is also quick to acknowledge the influences of his North American upbringing as well as those of the history and musical traditions of Europe. Between 2011 and 2018 he studied with Richard Raymond at the Montreal Conservatoire, during which time he won the grand prize at the Orchestre symphonique de Montr&eacute;al Competition aged just 15. That success spurred him on to pursue a career as a pianist. He is currently a student of Dang Thai Son (winner of the 10th Chopin Competition). Liu is determined not to be overwhelmed by the demands of touring and performing, and sets time aside to enjoy pastimes such as swimming, chess, karting, cinema, jazz and history. As he explains, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really the balance between all my hobbies that drives me to make music in a fresher way.&rdquo;

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Title

LUNARIS Bruce Liu

Lunaris

Works by Chopin &middot;&nbsp;Beethoven &middot;&nbsp;Debussy J.S. Bach &middot;&nbsp;Obel &middot;&nbsp;Mompou Ligeti &middot;&nbsp;Scriabin &middot;&nbsp;Cage

With his album&nbsp;LUNARIS, pianist Bruce Liu delivers his most distinctive album to date: A concept-driven journey through night, imagination and transcendence, built around some of the most iconic piano repertoire ever written.&nbsp;
Liu invites the listeners into a nocturnal sound world where sound, silence and imagination converge &ndash; the album follows a clear narrative arc, guiding the listener through a sequence of inner landscapes, from intimacy to illumination. Anchored by cornerstone works such as Beethoven&rsquo;s Moonlight Sonata and Waldstein Sonata, the programme expands into a carefully curated constellation including Debussy, Bach/Siloti, Mompou, Ligeti and Agnes Obel.&nbsp;
The album is released digitally and on CD as well as vinyl.&nbsp;

Bruce Liu - News | Deutsche Grammophon

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