Pianist with a poet's soul

Inspired by Western composers' views of the Orient, the music on Luo Wei's latest album has compelled the musician to write verse of her own.

One summer night in 2022, pianist Luo Wei was taking a walk in the garden near her home. The music playing on her phone was ambient and random.

Suddenly, she was captivated by a piece of music, which she later found out was called Oriental by Spanish composer Enrique Granados, selected from his musical work Danzas Espanolas (Spanish Dances).

"The music conjured an image of a Chinese pavilion, where the sun had just come up and the early morning dew was resting on the green leaves. It is very beautiful and imaginative. I was intrigued," says Luo, 24.

Her fascination with the piece didn't stop there. It inspired the young pianist's latest album, Gazing, and the supporting nationwide tour, called Gazing Eastwards, which kicked off on July 28 in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, and will run until 2024. The tour will take her to numerous cities, including Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

For the new album, Luo recorded pieces that are rarely performed, such as Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz's Iberia, Book I (T 105), and Spanish Suite No 1, Op 47, and Russian composer Mily Balakirev's Islamey, Oriental Fantasy. She also plays Clair de Lune, one of the best-known pieces among Chinese music lovers by French composer Claude Debussy. Granados' Oriental is also featured on the album.

"All the music and composers featured on the album were about, and inspired by, the concept of 'Oriental'. I call the album Gazing because the music is by Western composers who were inspired by 'Oriental' themes, but from afar," says Luo.

For the tour, besides playing pieces from the album, Luo also includes composer Yao Chen's piece, Five Colors, in which the composer uses the wu sheng yin jie, or the five-tune system found in Chinese music scales. Each part of the piece reflects the collision between the East and the West.

"The album reflects how Western composers see the East as being full of mystery. By having Yao Chen's Five Colors during the tour, it's like a conversation between the East and the West," says Luo.

The pianist also wrote a poem, titled The Moment Our Eyes Meet (Granada Fantasy), which was inspired by Albeniz's Granada, the composer's tribute to the city in Spain.

"All these pieces conjure up images, which is very poetic, and I want to write poems for each of them," adds Luo.

To launch the album, on July 22, Luo appeared at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. The album is being released under the NCPA Classics label and was recorded at the center several months ago.

Luo also invited veteran Chinese composer Guo Wenjing, Chinese poets Ouyang Jianghe and Xi Chuan.

"Poems bring unlimited inspiration to me. As a composer, I enjoy reading poems. Luo Wei wrote poems for the music works she plays, which brings a new dimension to them and allows the audience to understand them from a fresh perspective," says Guo, who once composed a five-act opera, called Poet Li Bai, about the Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet. One of his symphonies, titled Shu Dao Nan, was inspired and named after Li's poem of the same title.

Born and raised in Shenzhen, Luo was first attracted to piano when she was in kindergarten. She enjoyed the sound of the instrument and asked her mother to buy her one, with dream of making beautiful sounds with it. She started to learn at the age of 5 and gave her debut recital in Hong Kong a year later.

She practiced hard every day and remembers one particular time, when she had a fever, her mother told her to rest, which upset her very much.

"I was 8 years old. I can still recall the frustration because I wasn't allowed to play piano. I was determined to become a pianist ever since," Luo says.

A winner of numerous competitions in China, Wei also claimed first prize in the 11th Chopin International Competition for Young Pianists in Poland and the 2nd Rachmaninov International Piano Competition for Young Pianists in Frankfurt, both in 2010. In 2012, at age 13, Wei was accepted to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Gary Graffman and Robert McDonald.

"I was the youngest in the class and I tried to open myself up as much as possible to absorb everything," says Luo, recalling her early days at the Curtis Institute of Music.

At 16, Luo was signed by Decca Gold, a label of the Universal Music Group, and in 2019, she released her eponymous debut album, featuring music by Maurice Ravel, Dmitri Shostakovich, Joseph Haydn, and Sergey Prokofiev. The album made the 19-year-old Luo a rising star in the classical music world. The album's cover featured Luo in a white, chic suit, standing in an abandoned factory in New York.

"The record company wanted me to wear a pink, short skirt, which I said no to immediately. I had a clear idea about what I wanted to express with the album and the style should be consistent — from the music to my image," says Luo.

"Luo Wei is a young lady now, who deserves to go very far. She is not only a wonderful musical powerhouse, but a brilliant thinker, who goes way beyond the score and brings her own ideas to everything she approaches," said Graffman in an interview in 2019.

"I spent my first 12 years in China and I grew up with Chinese culture. Later I came to the US and performed around Europe, which allowed me to learn about Western culture. Both of them affect me and inspire me to think," says Luo, who now splits her time between Shenzhen and Philadelphia.

The young pianist also loves theater, especially improvisational theater, and received acting training. In April, she performed with contemporary dancer-choreographer Zach Gonder in New York in an immersive theater production, combining music, poetry, dance and installation art. Luo is trying to bring that production to China next year.

"I enjoy performing very much. Acting and playing piano both allow me to learn about the stage and the audience. I would like to expand my vision of performing onstage and I want to bring a different experience to the audience," says Luo.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn