SECOND STAGE: Qinmei Luo, piano | Graduating Student Project

This program places different kinds of intensity next to each other.

Debussy’s Étude for Octaves focuses on control and motion, where the physical gesture of playing is clearly exposed. Beethoven’s Appassionata extends that intensity into a more sustained and structured form.

In Ravel’s La Valse, the sense of balance begins to break down. The surface remains elegant, but the underlying motion becomes unstable.

Cowell’s The Harp of Life removes the focus from the keyboard and shifts attention to the sound itself.

Nostalgia closes the program in a more restrained space. It does not resolve what comes before it, but simply leaves it behind.

Qinmei Luo was born in China in 2002 and began learning the piano at the age of four. She gave her first recital at ten at the Yunnan Poly Grand Theater. In 2017, she was admitted to the High School Affiliated with the Sichuan Conservatory of Music with excellent results. She is currently based in Boston, studying under Esther Ning Yau, and is a recipient of the Longy Music School Graduate Fellowship.

She has also studied with Jinsha Wang and Natalia Filipava of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Qinmei has won several awards, including the Gold Medal in the high school category of the 2018 Central Conservatory Piano Competition, Second Prize in the 2014 Steinway & Sons National Youth Piano Competition in Yunnan, and the Excellence Award at the 2020 Sichuan 5th Kawai Music Competition. She has performed internationally, including at the Cremona International Music Festival in Italy, where she participated in chamber music and received an Honorable Mention in the senior category.

She actively participates in music festivals and has studied with pianists such as Jerome Rose, Vladimir Valjarevic, Siheng Song. Her performances have taken her across the United States，Europe and Asia.

Qinmei continues to develop her musical voice through study and performance, seeking new experiences and growth as a young pianist.