Biography

Keri is a joint PhD candidate in Musicology at King’s College London and Hong Kong University. Her doctoral research centres on Joseph Haydn, 18th-century sensibility (sensibility as a philosophical discourse, a social and literary culture, and a clavichord-oriented musical notion), and keyboard music. Her article on Haydn’s keyboard sonatas is forthcoming in Music & Letters. Her other research interests include Leo Tolstoy and Vaughan Williams’ philosophies of music. 

Keri is a two-time recipient of Rayson Huang Scholarship in Music. She is also the recipient of Oldman Award from Royal Musical Association as well as multiple individual research grants and Global Research Grant (amount doubled) from KCL. She has presented papers in Orpheus Doctoral Conference in Ghent, Belgium; ISECS International Congress in Edinburgh; IMS Inter-congressional Symposium in Lucerne, Switzerland; and IMS-EA Conference in Soochow, China.

Keri received her Bachelor of Music in the University of Southern California, where she graduated as a Discovery Scholar under the tutelage of Professor Norman Krieger with a major in Piano Performance and a minor in Music Industry. She also studied with Andrew Ball in Royal College of Music, where she obtained her Master of Piano Performance and was awarded the Evelyn Tarrant Award for the Artist Diploma programme. Keri also studied in Idyllwild Arts Academy with Todor Pelev, concertmaster of San Bernardino Symphony, as a Violin Performance major. In March 2017, Keri was one of the twenty-five pianists chosen to compete in the Virginia Warring International Piano Competition in Palm Desert, California. In May 2018, Keri was invited to Los Angeles to serve as a judge for the 2018 Friends of William Grant Still Young Artists Competition. 

Due to recurring injuries, Keri no longer focuses on performance. Her past awards include the third prize of the Sixth International Chopin Piano Competition in Hong Kong Asia and a first prize in the Asian Youth Music Competition in Hong Kong. She was also awarded an honourable mention in the Glendale Piano Competition, first prize of the Antelope Valley Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, fifth prize of the Edith Knox Performance Competition, first prize of the Pyrenees Music Society French Music Competition, grand prix of Pyrenees Music Society Russian Music Competition, an honorable mention of the International Young Artist Piano Competition in Washington D.C., an honorable mention of Wildflower International Recording Competition, first prize of the Aloha International Piano Concerto Competition, first prize of the Coeur d’Alene Symphony National Young Artists Competition, fourth prize of the Brevard Music Center Piano Competition, first prize in the piano division in the Hatfield & District Music Festival, and a Terzo premio in the Livorno Piano Competition.

As a soloist, Keri has performed J.S. Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D with Salzburg Junge Philharmonie in the Mirabell Palace and Gardens in Salzburg, Austria; Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No.5 with Coeur D’Alene Symphony in the Salvation Army Kroc Center in Spokane, Washington and Hawaii Youth Symphony in the Blaisdell Concert Hall in Honolulu, Hawaii; and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4  with Antelope Valley Symphony in Antelope Valley College Performing Arts Theatre in Lancaster, California. Keri also accompanied singer Bobby McFerrin and the St. Paul’s Co-educational Primary School Choir in the Hong Kong Arts Festival at the Hong Kong Cultural Center when she was twelve.

A scholarship recipient of Piano Summer New Paltz, Brevard Music Center, and Southeastern Piano Festival, Keri has worked with pianists including Daniel Lessener, Victor Rosenbaum, Vladimir Feltsman, Alexander Korsantia, Susan Starr, Robert Roux, Robert Hamilton, Paul Ostrovsky, Phillip Kawin, Logan Skelton, Pamela Mia Paul, Vladimir Viardo, Angela Cheng, Carol Leone, John Adams, Lucinda Carver, Charles Dennis Thurmond, Li MingQiang, and Hae-Won Chang.

Interested in theology and philosophy, Keri was part of the Associateship of King’s College (AKC) program and received a certificate of Dimensions of the Faith from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Her theological interests concern typological hermeneutics and biblical intertextuality, particularly in relation to Paul’s allusions to Genesis in his epistles. In terms of philosophy, she takes interest in the works of Irenaeus, Paul Ricœur, Søren Kierkegaard, and Michel Foucault. She also loves reading fantasy, especially J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.

Keri also enjoys writing essays on sundry topics. Her short essay “Envisioning the Invisible” was selected as one of the three runner-ups out of close to 1000 submissions in the “Visions of a World After Covid-19” contest organized by OpenDemocracy and UCL. Her another essay “Visible Rage and the Invisible Race” was named one of the nineteen finalist entries in Bergen International Literary Festival Essay Competition out of 550 submissions. Keri has also participated in songwriting contests with one of her submissions reaching the third round of the 19th USA Songwriting Competition in 2014. She was also awarded two Honourable Mentions with Special Recognition in the 2016 Song Door Songwriting Competition. She was also awarded first prize in Be Still Creative Competition. She also enjoys baking cheesecakes and photography.

Keri loves listening to J.S. Bach, Robert Schumann, Alexander Scriabin, Dmitri Shostakovich, Samuel Barber, and Arvo Pärt. Her favourite pianists are Sviatoslav Richter, Radu Lupu, Daniil Trifonov, Denis Matsuev, and Grigory Sokolov. Her favourite violinists are Hilary Hahn, Maxim Vengerov, and David Oistrakh. Keri also grew up loving rap music and is a fan of the music of J. Cole, Nas, Lupe Fiasco, KB, Trip Lee, and Derek Minor.