George Li Returns to Grand Rapids Symphony With Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2

Pianist George Li, like so many other kids, began piano lessons at age 4. Though it soon was clear he had a special gift, for years, it was just a hobby.

One day at age 11, while performing Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, the Boston native had an epiphany.

"All of a sudden, in the middle of the performance I felt different," he said in a 2018 interview with National Public Radio. "I was kind of transported in some other reality. And I felt all these emotions within the piece and within myself."

That's when Li's light bulb switched on.

"After that moment I wanted to do this for the rest of my life," he said.

So far, the rest of his life has only been a dozen years, but they've been momentous.

Li, the Silver Medalist in the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, returns to the Grand Rapids Symphony stage for a concert titled Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich on Friday and Saturday, March 15-16 at 8 p.m. in DeVos Performance hall. Concert sponsor is James & Judy DeLapa

Li will be soloist in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, one of the most popular works for piano and orchestra in the entire repertoire.

Music Director Marcelo Lehninger also will lead the Grand Rapids Symphony in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. The concerts in the Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series open with Moxie, a short, satirical work by American composer Kristin Kuster.

Li, who is the son of Chinese immigrants, made his Grand Rapids Symphony debut in April 2012 as a Gilmore Young Artist of the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. His performance of Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor was in St. Cecilia Music Center as part of the Grand Rapids Symphony's former Rising Stars Series.

This month, the 23-year-old pianist will appear in a much larger hall with a weightier concerto.

"Every pianist plays it, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he'll do with it," Lehninger said. "I've never worked with him, but I've heard such incredible things about him."

Prior to his Grand Rapids debut nearly 7 years ago, Li had already won First Prize in the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, made his Carnegie Hall debut, and performed at the White House for President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Since then, Li won the Silver Medal in the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2015, the first American to place in the finals in 25 years.

In 2016 he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. In 2017, Warner Classics released his debut recording, and in 2018 he graduated from college, albeit with a bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University and a master's degree in music from the nearby New England Conservatory of Music, offered by both schools through a dual-degree program.

Li has performed with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, the Hamburg Philharmonic with Manfred Honeck, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic with Yuri Temirkanov. He has toured Asia with the London Symphony Orchestra and Giandrea Noseda.

Later this month, Li will be soloist in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the London Philharmonic in the Royal Festival Hall under Vasily Petrenko.

Dmitri Shostakovich's famous Symphony No. 5 was a sensation from the start. At its debut in November 1937 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), the audience wept during the sublime third movement and cheered the apparent patriotic fervor of its finale. At its premiere, the audience gave it a standing ovation that lasted well over a half hour.

In an era of massive Stalinist Purges in which millions of Russians were arrested and taken away, never to be seen or heard again, Shostakovich also was out of favor with the official Soviet authorities for composing modernist works that did not reflect the wishes of the ruling Communist Party. With his Fifth Symphony, Shostakovich was restored to good graces. Yet more discerning listeners detected a sense of irony in the music, as if the composer were putting a brave face on a bad situation.

• Inside the Music, a free, pre-concert, multi-media presentation sponsored by BDO USA, will be held before each performance at 7 p.m. in the DeVos Place Recital Hall.

• The complete Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, May 12, 2019, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.

Tickets for the Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series start at $18 and are available at the Grand Rapids Symphony box office, weekdays 9 am - 5 pm at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across the street from Calder Plaza). Call (616) 454-9451 x 4 to order by phone. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum).

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 am - 6 pm or on the day of the concert beginning two hours before the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

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