YICAI LIU is a first-year high school student at the Central Conservatory of Music Middle School in China, where she studies under Professor Zhou Yunqing. She began her formal piano training at an early age and, in 2019, was admitted with the highest nationwide score to the Central Conservatory of Music Primary School, Piano Performance Major, at Grade Four. 

YiCai has earned numerous awards in national and international competitions. In 2019, she won the Grand Prize in the Huanglong Music Season Piano Week “Pinnacle Duel,” receiving an artistic development grant of 100,000 RMB. That same year, she earned First Prize with Distinction in the Children’s Amateur Group A at the Steinberg International Music Festival and “Steinberg Cup” National Youth Piano Competition, and First Prize in the Children’s Amateur Group A and the Grand Prize in the Amateur Group at the 8th Cadenza Chinese Piano Works Competition, where she was awarded a Cadenza piano. In 2021, she won the Gold Prize with Distinction in Open Group A at the Haydn International Piano Competition and First Prize in the Professional Children’s Group at the Giseking International Piano Elite Invitational Competition (Hanover, Germany). Most recently, in 2024, YiCai received Third Prize in Group A at the 19th “Academy Cup” Piano Concerto Competition at the Central Conservatory of Music. 

YiCai’s playing has been widely praised for its maturity and musical sensitivity. China News Service noted that, even in 2019, she demonstrated a stability beyond her years, with judge Mikhail Voskresensky remarking, “Her fingertips flow with poetic quality.”