Kate Liu

Talented girl, third prize at the last Chopin competition two years ago. I wonder what happened to her, quite a serious injury, too many concerts?

Did she suffer an injury? She was playing in Warsaw when I was there in early 2016. I loved her playing at the Chopin comp.

Yes I think so, already for quite some time, since 2016. Just look at her website, all info on recent concerts is missing, also her FB page, nothing since beginning of 2016.

I see. If you search Google for her name + injury it comes up with a few announcements of that without stating what it is. I will try to contact her.

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And how do you plan on accomplishing that?

Back when she hit fame and her Chopin performances were uploaded, I left some euphoric messages under the videos and a few days later someone named Kate Liu was subscribed to my channel. Unfortunately she has one of those YT pages which doesn’t allow private messages, but by searching Google with her YT username (not Kate Liu but the login name which you see if you hover over the public name) I found her Twitter page, which is basically empty and hasn’t been used since August. So I sent her a tweet – ā€˜Hi, it’s me, your fan. Please feel free to use me and upload your videos to my YT channel like you’re my Dominatrix.’ That kind of polite-cum-submissive thing. Anyway that was the roundabout way of contacting her. I could also send a message through her website, but it’ll probably land in her agent’s box.

I see. Well, you are a bonafide something-or-other!

haha yeah maybe it’s a bit creepy but the aim is the source :pimp:

Almost a year later and I’ve still heard nothing about her, strange.

She was definitely more interesting and played on a higher level than da Poon.

Ok, I just found this: vimeo.com/260331526

Hehe, and of course in Coral Gables.

Good to see that she’s allright. I hope I’m not starting any rumors now… but I first heard about her through a Polish friend around the time of the Chopin competition who tried to get me interested in her playing even before R1. I can’t find anything about this in my e-mail archive now, but my memory - at least - is that it turned out he was friends with her boyfriend or something like that and hence had a bit of vested interest in her. About a year ago now I wrote and asked if he knew anything about Kate, but was met with a wall of silence, and then eventually just that she had ā€œproblemsā€. No further info relayed. If I’m right in remembering that he had personal connections to her he would surely know what’s going on, but that he chose not to tell perhaps in that case says a thing or two about the nature of the incident…

that 397 is depressing

What do you think about this program pianopera?

IMO the Mozart was not only depressing but downright sloppy in the faster parts. The Mazurka wasn’t much better so I just gave up listening.
There seems to be a deeper (mental?) problem here, more than just a temporary tendonitis, that caused a shocking drop in her playing level. :frowning:
Or perhaps she was just terribly nervous for the occasion after such a long break from concertizing.

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I’ll have some free time in July/August and am considering a local trip for some recitals. I checked Chopin’s Duszniki Zdroj programme and see Kate Liu will play in August. Unfortunately I can’t say that the other pianists listed really interest me so I’ll probably skip this

Also the Tchai Comp is coming up in just 4 months (end of June). The website’s down so I can’t see if the selection process is over.

I’m in similar thoughts at the moment… One festival I’d love to visit is the one in Colmar. Also Bad Kissingen which has a good concert hall, although I’d hate it if the concert was recorded for broadcast since they’re very good from there as well.

Really not sure about pianists though. There are many I’d love to hear, but not many I can warrant the cost of traveling for. I think I’d have to see it as a holiday trip - which would be easy enough to do with most countries in central Europe.

What about the Dubrovnik festival btw? Checked that?

No I haven’t, I’m just looking now. Ivo will play (Bach,Beet,Chopin,Ravel), and YW in a chamber spot. That’s about it unless I missed something.

Why Colmar? I don’t know anything about that one.

I went to the Bad Kissingen festival in 2003 (Ivo’s Rach 2) and would recommend it. It’s quite busy and quite posh though, too much so for me these days.

I’m still disappointed in the poor lineup for the Prague Spring.

It’s actually primarily that I know the venue is a stone church, which is something different both for pianists and audience. It can be terrible - the main one used here in S is hopeless since it’s like sitting in an acoustic house of mirrors, but from what I’ve heard shoebox shaped ones can be really good and give this majestic, cathedral like vibe to the sound. It also requires the pianist to adjust - I love every concert I’ve heard with GS in stone churches for instance, and you can tell how he thrives in having that kind of acoustic response. You really play the building, even more so than in a concert hall.

This aside it’s also France and the city itself, which would make an excellent tourist destination all by itself.

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