Katherine Liu
Katherine E. Liu, 17, is an 11th grader from Boston, Massachusetts. She started her musical journey at
age three and performed publicly at Boston’s Steinway Hall one year later. She has received top prizes
in numerous piano competitions, including Grand Prize at the VI Chopin International Piano
Competition in Connecticut and the Soloists of New England Competition, and First Prizes at the III
Krystian Tkaczewski International Piano Competition, the Steinway Society Piano Competition, 2019
NEC Preparatory Concerto Competition, the 2020 Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition for
Young Pianists, the 2019 Rosewood Fanning International Piano Competition, and the 2021 Lowell
Philharmonic Concerto Competition, among many others. Over the past few years, Katherine has
performed as a soloist with several orchestras, including the Rivers Symphony Orchestra and the
Brockton Symphony Orchestra. She also performed and worked with the Fort Worth Symphony
Orchestra in a concerto masterclass, where she was one of 14 selected pianists chosen to participate in
the Cliburn Junior Festival. Katherine is also the bronze medalist at the 2019 Yamaha USASU
International Piano Competition and one of three finalists in the 2021 Vladimir Krainev Moscow
International Piano Competition. During the past year, she won Special Prize for Best Performance of a
Contemporary Piece in both the Claudette Sorel International Piano Competition (2021) and the Arthur
Fraser International Piano Competition (2021) and placed second in the DuBois Piano Competition
(2021). Katherine is also a 2022 National YoungArts finalist in Classical Music and a special prize
winner at the 2021 International Piano-E Competition. As a seventeen year old, she has also been
accepted into multiple adult division competitions, including the Iturbi International Piano
Competition, the Viotti International Piano Competition, and the Hastings International Piano
Competition. Katherine has performed with the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall as a Grand Prize
winner of the Fidelity Investments Young Artists Competition. She has also placed second in the
Ronald Sachs International Piano Music Competition as the only piano prize-winner (2021), won gold
prize in the Bellagrande International Music Competition (2021), and won first prize in the Charleston
International Music Competition (2021). Most recently, she won the Brookline Symphony Orchestra
Concerto Competition and will be featured in their upcoming concert season.
Having made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2015, Katherine has performed in the Cartoon Festival at
Boston’s Symphony Hall several times and was featured on WCRB 99.5 with host Cathy Fuller.
Katherine appeared on NPR’s From the Top at Jordan Hall in 2016 and participated in several From the
Top YouTube video productions, including “Star Wars Mashup” and “Fantastic Musicians and Where to
Find Them”. Katherine is honored to have presented and performed at many conferences including the
Story Gathering in Nashville, TN, the Imagine Solutions Conference in Naples, FL and the E.G.
Conference in Carmel, CA. She was also invited to perform at the “Lato z chopinem” festival in
Poland. Appearing at renowned concert halls across the globe, Katherine has performed at venues
including the CMA Theater in Nashville, the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, Mixon Hall
in Cleveland, Katzin Hall in Arizona, and Caruth Auditorium in Dallas. She is also a third year
recipient of the Chopin Foundation scholarship and was accepted into the 2021 MorningSide Music
Bridge festival with full scholarship.
Katherine has worked with many great musicians such as Keith Lockhart, Alexander Ghindin, Valery
Kuleshov, Krzysztof Jablonski, Alexander Kobrin, Piotr Paleczny, Ewa Poblocka, Kevin Kenner,
Edward Auer, Katherine Chi, Jay Sun, John Perry, Margarita Shevchenko, Zlata Chochieva, Sean Chen,
and Ruth Reinhardt. She currently studies with HaeSun Paik at the New England Conservatory
Preparatory School. In her free time, Katherine loves to read, swim, dance, and explore the art of
mathematics.