©Photo: Zhutek

©Photo: Zhutek

©Photo: Zhutek

©Photo: Zhutek

©Photo: Zhutek

©Photo: 2021 Kevin Day Photography

Leia Zhu

Violin

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Celebrated for her exceptional musical maturity and credited with “a poise and musical intelligence beyond her years” by the Guardian, 17-year-old British violinist Leia Zhu has performed on the international stage in more than 20 countries since her debut at the age of four. In 2022 she was the youngest musician to be included on the list of 30 brilliant young musicians under 30 by Classic FM for its 30^th birthday special edition and was named a rising star by BBC Magazine in 2021.

Highlights of the 2023/24 season include Zhu’s debuts at the Royal Albert Hall — as part of the BBC Proms — Wigmore Hall, and Bechstein Hall, and return engagements as a soloist with Lucerne Festival Strings and Armenian Philharmonic. She features as a chamber recitalist at the Fundación Juan March, Wimbledon International Music Festival, and Festival Flâneries de Reims.

In 2023 Leia Zhu made her concerto debut with the Tonhalle Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto under the baton of Paavo Järvi. In 2021 she performed with London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle as part of the orchestra’s annual BMW Classics concert in London’s Trafalgar Square, and appeared later that season with London Philharmonic, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, as well as in recital at Tonhalle Zürich, Menuhin Festival Gstaad and St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Also in 2021, she shared the stage with Irish band Westlife in a livestreamed performance of ‘You Raise Me Up’ that was viewed by 27 million people.

Zhu was appointed Artist-in-Residence of the London Mozart Players from 2021 – 23, performing as a featured soloist and chamber musician while also playing a crucial role in the orchestra’s community residencies and educational outreach. She has previously appeared as a soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, National Orchestra of Belgium — conducted by Maxim Vengerov — National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Pomeranian Philharmonic, Orquestra Simfònica Illes Balears, and Orquesta de Extremadura. Zhu has performed in major concert venues across Europe including London’s Royal Festival Hall and Barbican Centre, BOZAR in Brussels, Mozarteum Grosser Saal in Salzburg, KKL in Lucerne, Tonhalle Zurich Grosser Saal, and Berliner Philharmonie. Zhu has been featured at prestigious festivals including the Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, MozartFest Würzburg, Interlaken Classics, White Nights and Musical Olympus in St Petersburg and Vadim Repin’s Trans-Siberian Art, with selected performances broadcasted on BR Radio and BBC Radio 3.

Zhu is a passionate advocate for education and championing the Arts. Since 2022 she has been a patron of the HarrisonParrott Foundation with a focus on expanding interest in classical music for all generations. She has been featured on Classic FM, BBC News, ITV, Sky News, The Strad magazine, Violin Channel and Violinist.com, as well as news outlets in Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Russia, Germany, Israel, Greece and the USA. She regularly posts videos on her popular YouTube channel, where she shares her joy of music, composers and creativity, which attract thousands of subscribers and views.

HarrisonParrott represents Leia Zhu for worldwide general management.

Saint Saens Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso | Leia Zhu with Sir Simon Rattle and LSO © Leia Zhu - The Violin Girl

Saraste Playera, Op.23, No.1 | Leia Zhu © Leia Zhu

Sarasate Zapateado, Op.23, No.2 | Leia Zhu © Leia Zhu

Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Tárrega | Leia Zhu © Leia Zhu

Dvořák Romance for Violin and Orchestra | Leia Zhu © Leia Zhu

Ravel "Tzigane" | Leia Zhu © Leia Zhu

Brahms Contemplation | Leia Zhu © Leia Zhu

Leia Zhu - Saint Saens © Keshet Elon

Leia Zhu - H.W. Ernst Variations on "The Last Rose of Summer" © Leia Zhu

Leia Zhu - Zoltán Kodály - Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7, 1st and 3rd movement © Leia Zhu

Leia Zhu - Lucerne Festival - Paganini’s La Campanella & Kreisler Miniature Viennese March. © Leia Zhu

“She played with breath-taking ease. Zhu not only mastered the parts of the score that required high virtuosity and bravura, but also managed to give lyrical passages in the second movement the necessary emotional intensity. There was a well-deserved round of applause.”

Kleine Zeitung, April 2022

“She seized on the thrust provided by the orchestra with a tone that she pulled out of the depths and out of the movement of her whole body, so to speak, and carried it up to finely polished, virtuoso dancing heights. This performance also led the instrument expressively beyond brilliance and its limits and confirmed that this star has risen.”

Luzerner Zeitung, April 2022

“We confess that we were expecting the usual enfant prodigy, all astounding technical skill and zero interpretative and expressive ability. Our surprise in listening to her was great: Leia has already matured her own sound, her ability to make technical acrobatics not a spectacular end, but a means to give voice to a feeling, an emotion, a spiritual world evoked by sound. Her faring is intense, above all a crystalline sound, even in the upper register or in the very rapid scales and trills. But what struck us most is her excellent ability to vary dynamics with mature knowledge, colouring and returning a sound that is always rich in nuances and chiaroscuro.”

Corriere della Sera, November 2021

“Colorful, expressive, powerful. (…) She communicates with the eyes (…) She looks very relaxed, smiles even in the most difficult passages, whether double stops, highest sounds or ludicrously fast runs, everything seems effortless. And as in the slow movement, the melodies breathe, long cantilenas bloom in dense legato, this is great art. The dialogues with clarinet and Flute are particularly intimate.”

Luzerner Zeitung, October 2021

“Leia is fourteen (…) I have never heard a violin give such rich, luscious low notes. (…) I repeat, Leia is only fourteen. Yet she misses not one iota of the strained passion of the [Tchaikovsky Violin] concerto. I am obliged to entertain the concept of reincarnation. Or something like that. Other violinists we have heard make the demanding cadenza sound difficult. It undoubtedly is. However, in Leia’s performance the difficult is made to sound easy. Who was it who said that a virtuoso is one who makes the difficult sound easy? The girl is startlingly at home in this.”

Seen and Heard International, October 2021

“Aged 14, with a poise and musical intelligence beyond her years, she is making that difficult transition from prodigy to star with apparent ease. She was perfectly at home in this virtuosic showpiece [Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso]. Watch out for her.”

(The Guardian, August 2021)

“At the age of 13, mature like a veteran and yet when you look at this young lady (…) your eyes could not believe what your ears hear. Leia’s presentation and performance are astounding not simply because she is “young”, but because it is convincing.”

Luzerner Zeitung, October 2020

“Eleven-year-old British violinist Leia Zhu demonstrated a disarming security in the pyrotechnics that followed, with lightning-fast shifts, cut-glass harmonics and an obvious familiarity with the choreography of concerto performance.”

The Strad, June 2018