Keri is currently a PhD Candidate of the King’s College London – Hong Kong University Joint Musicology Programme. She is the recipient of the Rayson Huang Scholarship in Music from HKU, an Oldman Award from RMA, and multiple individual research grants and a double Global Research Grant from KCL. She has presented in the 8th KCL- UNC Joint Graduate Student Music Conference in London; Orpheus Doctoral Conference in Ghent, Belgium; ISECS International Congress on the Enlightenment in Edinburgh; IMS Inter-congressional Symposium in Lucerne, Switzerland; and IMS-EA Conference in Soochow, China. Interested in theology and philosophy, Keri is currently part of the Associateship of King’s College (AKC) program. She has also received a certificate of Dimensions of the Faith from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Her research interests are primarily 18th-century studies and musical culture, piano literature, and theology.
Keri previously studied in the University of Southern California, where she graduated as a Discovery Scholar under the tutelage of Professor Norman Krieger with a major 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 in the Artist Diploma programme. Performance is however no longer her focus as a result of recurring hand injuries developed over the years.
Keri entered Idyllwild Arts Academy when she was 16 with a scholarship as a violin major studying under Todor Pelev, concertmaster of San Bernardino Symphony. But within two months she had developed severe injuries within two months and had to abandon instrumental studies for almost two years. She eventually gave up on the violin and changed her major to piano performance with Dr. Andrew Park as her teacher.
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 12.
Keri’s earliest awards include the third prize of the Sixth International Chopin Piano Competition in Hong Kong Asia in 2003 and a first prize in the Asian Youth Music Competition in Hong Kong in 2004. Awards received after becoming a piano major in Idyllwild include 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, a first prize in the piano division in the Hatfield & District Music Festival, and a first prize in the IMKA internet music competition.
In March 2017, Keri was one of the 25 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.
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 research currently focuses Joseph Haydn’s keyboard works and the 18th-century culture of sensibility, but J.S. Bach, Robert Schumann, Alexander Scriabin, and Dmitri Shostakovich remain as her favourite composers. Her favourite pianists include Sviatoslav Richter, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Radu Lupu, Van Cliburn, Daniil Trifonov, Denis Matsuev, and Grigory Sokolov; as for violinists, Hilary Hahn, Maxim Vengerov, Itzhak Perlman, David Oistrakh, and Julia Fischer.
She loves rap music as well. Keri has participated in songwriting contests. Her song reached 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 also loves reading and baking cheesecakes.
The most difficult task she is facing right now: to listen and love well.
“There is no avoiding politics. The moment one life impinges upon another, politics begins. And our lives do impinge on others whether we will it or not. We are centres of power – power that can curse or bless – and are responsible for managing and directing that power. Power doesn’t disappear or diminish when we enter the way of faith. If we are naive with power or disdainful of it, we will certainly either misuse it or allow it to be used by others who are neither innocent or scrupulous.” – Eugene Peterson
But in this world where no one is exempt from power and immune to polarization, the inability to listen and love well ironically becomes an abuse of power.
