Background and Artistic Formation

Born and raised in Guangzhou, China, Irene is an internationally active pianist, curator, and educator whose work lives at the intersection of performance, cultural preservation, and interdisciplinary practice. Growing up in a family with an architectural background taught her to see music as an art of form and space: she listens for proportion, line, and structure in every phrase, and she shapes programs with an architect’s attention to balance and flow. That formative sensibility informs both her interpretive voice at the keyboard and her approach to programming, where musical and visual design meet story-centered purpose.

Music was the language of Irene’s childhood. The piano accompanied family conversations, evening reflections, and long hours of private exploration; practice was play, and practice was storytelling. Winning First Prize at the Hong Kong International Piano Competition at sixteen established an early professional trajectory, after which she accepted invitations that broadened her artistic horizons. An especially formative moment was her performance at the China Music Arts Education Development Forum, a major international convening of more than seven hundred scholars, educators, and leading figures in performance. There she premiered new piano works by contemporary composer Amao Wang, an experience that deepened her commitment to living composers and to programming that places new music in dialogue with tradition.

International Career and Collaborations

As a performer, Irene has collaborated with distinguished ensembles and companies, bringing versatility and collaborative sensitivity to each project. She has performed with the Grammy-nominated St. Petersburg String Quartet and has worked closely with dance and theater institutions such as New Ballet San Jose and the San Francisco Ballet Association. Her professional invitations include engagements with the New World Symphony in Miami, the Chicago Summer Opera, the National Music Festival in Washington, D.C., and continued collaborations with institutions across the Bay Area and beyond. These opportunities reflect a reputation for musical leadership in chamber, solo, and collaborative dance-theater contexts, as well as an ability to translate repertoire across artistic disciplines.

Teaching, Mentorship, and Pedagogy

Teaching and mentorship are central to Irene’s mission. She approaches pedagogy as a practice of translation, helping students connect technical study to personal identity and story behind the music. Her teaching method combine conservatory-level rigor with project-based learning: students prepare public-facing projects, collaborate with peers in interdisciplinary showcases, and explore repertoire that reflects both local and global traditions. Irene prioritizes bilingual and culturally relevant materials so thatl earners from diverse backgrounds can see themselves reflected in the musical arts.

Methodology: Technology, Storytelling, and Cross-Field Practice

Irene’s methodology for the twenty-first century blends live performance with modern storytelling tools and cross-disciplinary collaborations. She designs recitals that interleave music with short spoken narratives, archival images, and multimedia vignettes to provide immediate listening frames for non-specialist audiences. She commissions short works that respond to community histories and archives, and she experiments with augmented program notes and modular online content that allow audiences to continue listening beyond the concert hall. Collaborations with choreographers, filmmakers, visual artists, and software designers produce immersive experiences where music functions as one element within a broader narrative environment rather than as an isolated display. These practices are intentional: they are meant to expand how listeners perceive classical music, revealing its connections to film, popular song, dance, and lived memory.

What Drives the Work

What drives Irene’s work is a conviction that classical music carries cultural memory and human feeling in concentrated form, and that its relevance depends on how we frame and share its stories. She believes that preservation and innovation are not opposites but partners: honoring lineage while commissioning new voices, teaching technique while encouraging creative agency, presenting canonical works while situating them alongside contemporary responses. Her practice is built on respectful partnerships with communities—listening before programming, inviting collaboration rather than prescribing content, and creating models that foster long-term cultural cultivation rather than one-time events.

Life outside music

Great missions require fuel, and for Irene, that fuel is found in her love of exploration. She embraces travel as both inspiration and education, immersing herself in diverse cultures and landscapes. From the pristine waters of Palau to the vibrant streets of Vietnam, from the crossroads of Istanbul to the artistic heartbeat of New York City, and from the remote mountain countryside of Southwest China to the cosmopolitan hubs of Europe, each journey deepens her understanding of humanity and enriches her artistry. These encounters with different traditions, histories, and communities continually shape the way she performs and curates music, reinforcing her commitment to bridging cultures through sound.