An unusual journey in music: Katie Liu returns to Scandinavia House

Katie Liu will be the guest artist in the season finale of Music on Park Avenue at Scandinavia House (For tickets, click HERE)

Born and raised in New Jersey, Katie Liu is a young musician of many talents: she just received her Master of Music at The Colburn School, and she also received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, concentrating in Operations Research and Financial Engineering with certificates in Computer Science and Musical Performance. We all know about Princeton University, but perhaps not everyone is acquainted with the Colburn School. It is an elite music conservatory which offers its students an education free of tuition. That is, if you get in. Only the best young musicians try, and of those who try, only the top five percent gets in. 

Katie started playing the violin very young, cheered on by her parents. Her father was, and is to this day, very passionate about classical music and especially the violin. But at Princeton something happened that changed the direction of her musical life:

– I had played the violin since I was five. My sophomore spring at Princeton, more exactly in January of 2018, I picked up the viola and started to practice it. It was a very spontaneous decision at the time, because I wanted to try something completely different and explore something new.

I immediately took to the sound of the instrument, and it felt so natural in my fingers. I realized that playing the viola helped me grow so much as a musician and cultivate a deeper understanding of the music I play, and it quickly took over as my main instrument.

Katie took the quite unusual journey of not only going to music conservatories but also getting a non-musical education. Understandably, this has been overwhelming at times, but she learned to make it work.

– It was definitely one of my biggest struggles at Princeton, and there were many occasions where I couldn’t practice as much without overloading myself. I’ve learned that consistency is key, and that even if things got really busy, there was always time for scales, or for tackling a specific phrase, just as I would make time for my friends or meals. I simply built it into my daily routine which was, again, the most important thing: consistency.

At Princeton University, Katie was part of the Opus chamber music student group, which started working together with Per Tengstrand and performed at the Music on Park Avenue series. She is actually the musician from Opus who has been featured most times at Scandinavia House. The last time was in a concert in 2019 with a Brahms-Rachmaninoff program, together with violinist Hana Mundiya and cellist Leland Ko, a trio that traveled to Sweden to tour that same year with Tengstrand.

During the pandemic, Per Tengstrand contacted her to be a part of the documentary series he did on Franz Schubert. In Sweden, they had performed Schubert’s “Arpeggione Sonata”: the idea was to record and film separately in their homes, and send files to each other which Tengstrand then put together. It was an important part of the documentary since the viola was Schubert’s favorite instrument, and the result has been watched by thousands. Katie admits it was a tough task to “play together separately”.

– Although it was unconventional, the process of recording remotely helped me appreciate in-person communication more, because it was surprisingly hard to put together without the normal communication of a rehearsal. It made me realize how much people adapt and respond to body language when playing in an ensemble.

This time Tengstrand and Liu will certainly perform together for real, and of course Schubert’s “Arpeggione Sonata” is on the program. It’s her first time back since 2019:

– I’m so excited to be back at Scandinavia House to play! A lot has happened since then. Back in early 2019, I hadn’t considered pursuing music full-time at all, and was primarily focused on my other studies. I entertained the idea of doing a Master’s in Music later that summer, because of the great experiences I had throughout the year. I ended up applying for conservatories in my senior year and ended up at the Colburn School, and I will be attending the Yale School of Music next! Ultimately, I’m not entirely sure if I will pursue a full-time career in music, because there are so many career paths that I would love to explore, but for now I would love to continue playing viola.