George Li is the recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts. The prize recognizes outstanding artistic talent and achievement in the composition or performance of music, drama, dance, or the visual arts. This prize honors the sum of a student’s artistic activities at Harvard.
A resident of Winthrop House concentrating in English enrolled in the Harvard/New England Conservatory dual-degree program for piano studies with Wha Kyung Byun, George Li is awarded this prize in recognition of his work as a pianist. Praised by the Washington Post for fusing “staggering technical prowess, a sense of command and depth of expression,” Li is a 2016 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant for piano and a 2015 Silver Medalist in the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Li has performed for President Barack Obama at the White House in an evening honoring Chancellor Angela Merkel and made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2017.
On Harvard’s campus, Li has performed with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. Past and upcoming concerto highlights include performances with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, Hamburg Philharmonic with Manfred Honeck, a tour of Asia with the London Symphony Orchestra and Giandrea Noseda, St. Petersburg Philharmonic with Yuri Temirkanov, Philharmonia Orchestra with Long Yu, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Mälmo Symphony, Verbier Festival Orchestra, DSO Berlin, Seattle Symphony, Utah Symphony, Sydney Symphony and Frankfurt Radio Symphony. He frequently appears with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra, including performances at the Paris Philharmonie, Luxemburg Philharmonie, and in various places throughout Russia. Li is an exclusive Warner Classics recording artist.