Celia Liu (劉玉), an internationally acclaimed Pipa artist, graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and is a former soloist with the China National Traditional Orchestra. She was a prize winner at the First Art Cup International Competition for Chinese Instrumental Music.
She has performed with many of the world’s most prestigious symphony orchestras. Notably, she appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra as a Pipa and Guzheng soloist at London’s Royal Festival Hall in the world premiere concert of Avatar. Her distinguished orchestral collaborations also include performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, the Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Paris, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Malaysia.
Celebrated for her fluid, expressive, and vibrant performances, Ms. Liu has earned widespread critical acclaim. She is the first Pipa artist to perform at the Hollywood Bowl and the first musician to perform the U.S. National Anthem on the Pipa before an NBA game.
In the United States, Ms. Liu has recorded for hundreds of Hollywood film and television soundtracks, including Nickelodeon’s Kung Fu Panda, Disney’s Mulan and Our Floating Dreams, and Universal Pictures’ Pavilion of Women. Most recently, she recorded the soundtrack for Netflix’s Avatar (Season 2) at the renowned Village Studios in Los Angeles and performed the Pipa and Guzheng for the theme music of Paramount Pictures’ Avatar: The Last Airbender. Composer Jeremy Zuckerman praised her performance as “the most brilliant.”
Ms. Liu was the founding Pipa faculty member in the World Music Department at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music. She has also been invited to lecture, perform, and promote Chinese music at prestigious institutions including the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, the University of Southern California (USC), Southern Utah University, Pomona College, and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA). Through these engagements, she continues to dedicate herself to preserving, promoting, and sharing the rich traditions of Chinese music.