In the fall of 2020, during a worldwide pandemic, classes started at 4 A.M. for Frost School of Music third-year DMA student Tianxu Liu. For the young international violinist—a recipient of the Sue Miller Guarneri violin—the early morning chats with her professors fit well with her daily schedule back home in mainland China.
She observed that being thousands of miles away was never a barrier, nor did it affect any particularities of learning; on the contrary, she saw her collaboration between instructional, content, and technological teams as a great challenge—pushing her to be more involved in Frost School of Music concerts. She's been a concertmaster several times, including last year's world premiere opera, The Leopard.
"I'm not really a talkative person, so mostly, I use my instrument to speak for me," says Liu. While not big on words, she's a self-made organizer. With a local arts organization's incredible support back home, Liu self-produced a Carnegie Recital Hall concert. On April 14, 2022, she performed there on the 1714 Giuseppe Guarneri' filius Andrea' "Sue Miller" violin, donated by the Miller family and graciously on loan by the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
"When I walked on the Carnegie Hall stage, I didn't feel it was real," says Liu. "I thought that not too many people would be there, and I was fine with that. But then . . . I had to blink twice. It was a packed house! And my professor and mentor, Bettina Mussumeli, was sitting on the first row smiling big at me."
Violin soloist, pedagogue, and clinician, Mussumeli is a violin and chamber music lecturer at Frost School of Music. She and Liu have known each other since 2018 when teacher and student met at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where Mussumeli taught and where Liu first pursued her long love for a career in music in the heart of San Francisco's music scene. After Mussumeli came to Frost, she encouraged Liu to move to Miami to continue her studies at the Frost School of Music.
Without this experience in Miami, New York City would not have been possible, Liu admits. Her recital's robust repertoire included Marche Miniature Viennese by Fritz Kreisher, Drinking Alone with the Moon by Delong Wang, Violin Sonata No. 8 in G Majore Op 30, no.3 by Ludwig van Beethoven, Violin Sonata No. 1 Op 13 by Gabriel Fauré, and the world premiere of Silencing the Sirens for Violin and Piano, a composition written for her by Charles Norman Mason, one of her professors at Frost.
"When I first asked Professor Mason if he had any ideas for this recital program, he said, 'I will write a piece for you.' A month later, he handed me this beautiful music on Greek mythology. I never thought I would love contemporary music so much," she admits. "It's an honor to have played this music at Carnegie Hall."
Liu recalls stepping out of the concert hall that night, leaving the noise behind to step onto the busy streets of New York City. She remembers walking on a cloud, suddenly realizing she had just shared something extraordinary with a large crowd. "In life, love is all,' she says, smiling. "Playing the violin is like sharing love and kindness with others without words."
Liu will be graduating in May and awaiting hearing from several orchestra auditions. She hopes to stay in the U.S. or go wherever her violin takes her.
