Keri holds a PhD in Musicology from King’s College London and the University of Hong Kong. Her doctoral research centres on Joseph Haydn, 18th-century sensibility, and keyboard music. Her research has been published or is forthcoming in Music & Letters, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, and Journal of Musicology. Her other research interests include musical semiotics, the changing aesthetics and ideological associations of the keyboard fantasia, and philosophies of music. Her work seeks to cross the boundaries of music, history, philosophy, theology, and literature. Keri will be lecturing at both the University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University in this coming fall semester.

Keri is a two-time recipient of Rayson Huang Scholarship in Music. She is also the recipient of Oldman Award from Royal Musical Association. She has also received multiple individual research grants and the Global Research Grant—with award amount doubled—from King’s College London. 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 at 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 at 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 at 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 chronic injuries, Keri no longer works on performance. Her previous 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 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.

Keri’s interests in theology encompass typological hermeneutics, Paul’s allusions to Genesis 3 in his epistles, as well as the theology of self-forgetfulness and shyness. She is also fascinated by the philosophies of Lao Tzu, Mary Wollstonecraft, Denis Diderot, Søren Kierkegaard, Michel Foucault, and Paul Ricœur. Keri has completed the Associateship of King’s College program at King’s College London.

Keri 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 received recognitions and prizes in multiple songwriting contests. Keri’s favourite composers are J.S. Bach, Schumann, Scriabin, followed by Ravel, Shostakovich, Samuel Barber, and Arvo Pärt. She admires pianists Sviatoslav Richter, Radu Lupu, Vladimir Sofronitsky, Daniil Trifonov, Denis Matsuev, and Grigory Sokolov as well as violinists Hilary Hahn, Maxim Vengerov, and David Oistrakh. She also likes to listen to rap (J. Cole, Nas, Lupe Fiasco, KB, Trip Lee), R&B (her first “non-classical” live concert experience was going to Alicia Keys’ 2004 show in Wan Chai Hong Kong alone when she just turned 12), and is a huge fan of OneRepublic and The Script. Keri loves photography and reading fantasy works such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.