Wei Luo

Pianist Wei Luo was a major child prodigy in China, playing virtuoso concertos and winning youth competitions in both China and the West before reaching her teens. She has shown an affinity for the virtuoso Russian repertory. Wei Luo was born in 1998 in Shenzhen, in southern China. She showed interest in music at age four, and at six, she made her recital debut in nearby Hong Kong. She performed with the Shanghai Philharmonic at ten and returned in 2011 to perform the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26, of Prokofiev, a work that remains central to her repertory. By that time, she had already won several youth prizes in China as well as, in 2010, first prize in the 11th Chopin International Competition for Young Pianists in Poland and the second Rachmaninov International Piano Competition for Young Pianists in Frankfurt, Germany. Wei Luo was accepted as a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at 13, and she made high-profile appearances in the U.S. during her early years in that country, including a recital at Herbst Hall in San Francisco, performances at New York's Mostly Mozart Festival, and regular appearances at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. At Curtis, she has studied with Gary Graffman and Robert McDonald while continuing to perform. A Philadelphia Inquirer critic raved in 2015 that she "immerses herself in the music with an intensity that borders on madness." Wei Luo received a Gilmore Young Artist Award in 2018 and made her debut at New York's Steinway Hall in the 2018-2019 season. Radio station WQXR included her on its list of "19 for '19," hailing her "pyrotechnical virtuosity." Her repertory ranges from Beethoven to Rodion Shchedrin, and she has performed the major concertos of Beethoven, Rachmaninov, and Prokofiev. Signed to the Decca Gold label, Wei Luo released her self-titled debut album in August of 2019; it featured music by Haydn, Ravel, Prokofiev, Shchedrin, and Shostakovich.
© James Manheim /TiVo