LIO Kuok-Wai

Born in Macao in 1989, Lio Kuok-wai began his piano studies at the age of five. In 1997, he was awarded a scholarship to study at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts under Wang Nan and Gabriel Kwok. In 2006, he entered The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studies with pianist Gary Graffman.

Lio Kuok-wai has won numerous competitions around the world. In 2007, he was the youngest competitor and first prize winner of the International Fulbright Concerto Competition for Pianists in Arkansas. He was awarded First Prize in the 2005 Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Competition in Salt Lake City, Gold Prize and Yoda (special) Prize in the Sixth International Chopin Piano Competition of Asia in Tokyo, First Prize and Audience Prize in the First International Institute for Young Musicians Piano Competition in Kansas, First Prize in the First Toyama Asian Youth Music Competition in Hong Kong, First Prize in the 10th Hong Kong (Asia) Piano Open Competition, and First Prize in the 65th Steinway & Sons International Youth Piano Competition in Beijing. Other achievements include Second Prize at the Third Seiler International Piano Competition for Young Pianist in Germany and Third Prize in the Fifth Tchaikovsky International Competition for Young Musicians in Japan.

Lio Kuok-wai made his concerto début at the age of ten with the Macao Orchestra in the opening ceremony of the 2000 Macao Arts Festival. Since then, he has performed in the Beijing Forbidden City Concert Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the University of Kansas, the Princeton University as well as in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Tokyo, Berlin, Hamburg and the Netherlands. In 2007 and 2008, he was selected to participate in the “Curtis On Tour” project, in which he performed solo and chamber music across the US and in Italy. He was the Young-Artist-in-Residence at the 2007 Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival in Florida, and was invited to give a master class at the Levine School of Music in Washington D.C. He has also collaborated with orchestras including the Hong Kong Philharmonic, China Philharmonic; Pan Asia, Guangzhou, North Arkansas, Russian Symphony Orchestras and Curtis Chamber Orchestra.

In 2003 he was awarded the Honorary Diploma by the Chief Executive of Macao in recognition of his achievements and was invited to perform for the President of China, Hu Jintao, for the fifth anniversary of Macao’s handover to China.