Pianist Bruce Liu Dazzles in Vancouver

Standing ovation for Liu in Vancouver

This afternoon I finally got an opportunity to watch piano superstar Bruce Liu perform in Vancouver at the Orpheum Theatre.

I have been following his career ever since he won the International Chopin Piano Competition 2021. It is held every five years and was supposed to be held in 2020, but was delayed by a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Liu was born in Paris to Chinese parents from Beijing and the family moved to Montreal when he was six  years old. Two years later he began learning the piano and already performing by the age of 11.

The VSO warms up for the concert

In 2023 I watched the documentary Pianoforte, and it follows five hopeful pianists as they go through a long, drawn out process of competing for 21 days in one of the oldest piano competitions in the world.

The film shows the intense practicing sessions, the competitors' emotions ranging from fear to confidence, joy and sadness to give the audience an idea of what it's like to have the ambition of becoming a professional concert pianist.

Liu is not one of the five pianists followed in the film, but he is revealed ultimately as the winner and his life completely changed -- immediately touring around the world to show off his immense talent, though he seems to be taking it all in stride.

I missed his concert the last time he was here, and was determined to make sure I caught him the next time -- which was today.

That said I did not get a good seat, sitting back almost in the equivalent of the nose-bleed section. But he's a big star, so prices were high, and not many seats left to choose from.

Liu won the Chopin Piano Competition in 2021

Liu is not in the style of Lang Lang or Yuja Wang (thank goodness). The 28-year-old is very mature, cool, collected, but when he performs, he bursts with energy and you can see his passion for music as well as his talent in tinkling the piano keys.

Led by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra music director Otto Tausk, Liu performed Prokofiev's Concerto No. 3. Liu has said in interviews that he will "improvise" in that he will play the same piece over and over, but in a different way to keep it fresh "because for me every performance is kind of improvisation -- you know, you go to a different place, you meet different people," he said.

"Not in a sense of inventing the notes, but one night a phrase might breathe differently because of the hall or the audience's energy or something personal I feel in the moment."