Shiu Pui Yee

Belle Shiu is currently a pipa virtuoso with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. She completed her Master of Music programme at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) in 2016, under the supervision of Zhang Ying. She first learned the pipa at the Music Office under Li Ping, and was coached by the famous virtuosi Yang Jing and Ren Hong. She also trained in nanyin pipa under Ong Chay-tin and zheng under Luo Jing.

Shiu was a winner of many prizes at the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival while still in school. She was a recipient of several scholarships while studying at the HKAPA, and won a Bronze Award in the International Group at the Hong Kong International Youth Pipa Competition in 2013, and a Merit Award in the Youth Specialism Group at the Hong Kong International Youth Music Competition in 2015.

Shiu has performed with cellist Trey Lee, violist and conductor Yuri Bashmet, violist Vladimir Mendelssohn and violinist Gian Paolo Peloso, and the group, Moscow Soloists. She was the first player of Chinese music to perform at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland after she was invited to perform there in 2015. At the invitation of the Moscow Soloists, Shiu was a guest soloist at the Prosecco Festival in Italy and the December Nights in Russia in 2016, the Sochi Winter Festival in Russia and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland in 2017, and the Yuri Bashmet Music Festival in Russia in 2018. She has also appeared with local experimental pop band SoundTube at Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco in 2018.

Earlier on, in 2014, she was a guest performer playing the pipa at the concert titled ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, featuring the Birmingham Symphonic Winds of the UK and the Hong Kong Youth Symphonic Band. Also in 2014, she shared the concert stage with the Academy Chinese Orchestra and played the pipa solo in Tian Yuan, a double concerto for erhu and pipa. She reprised her collaboration with the Academy Chinese Orchestra in 2016, performing in the pipa concerto, Quaint Tunes from the Capital, under the baton of Shao En.

Source: Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra