13 November 2025
Newsdesk
By Emerson Cox
As an important stage for piano culture, Gulangyu in Xiamen has long been renowned for its music events and artistic performances, earning the reputation of "Piano Island." "The 2025 Gulang Series The International Music Open Competition", recognized as a whitelist event by China’s Ministry of Education, continues this tradition. Within this framework, the "2025 Music Moving Drum Wave International Music Open Competition" encompassed multiple categories—including piano, strings, brass, and percussion—attracting young performers from across China and abroad.
Within this framework, Gao was invited in May 2025 to serve on the jury panel of the "The Music Moving Drum Wave International Music Open Competition", further underscoring her professional influence in the Chinese music field. The competition has consistently assembled distinguished jurors with strong academic and performance credentials. Past jury panels have included Yun Sun , renowned pianist and professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, who also serves as a doctoral supervisor and is widely recognized for her achievements in both performance and education. From the Central Conservatory of Music, professors and doctoral supervisors such as Ming Yang and Xiang Yu have also been invited, bringing extensive experience in piano pedagogy, research, and performance. These examples reflect the caliber of expertise represented in the competition’s jury panels.
Complementing her work as a juror is Gao’s sustained accumulation of performance experience on stage. On August 19, 2023, she spearheaded the "In Search of Lost Dream in A Summer’s Night" chamber music concert at Hangzhou’s Xizi Concert Hall, which served as a concentrated demonstration of both her artistic standards and her appeal to audiences. Selection of participating musicians for the concert followed stringent requirements, with all performers required to pass rigorous artistic reviews to ensure overall quality. Appearing as the featured pianist, Gao displayed not only technical stability but also a high level of ensemble collaboration, bringing the performance to a unified tension and resonance. The concert attracted an audience of approximately 350, filling the hall to capacity. The enthusiastic feedback confirmed that high art can likewise achieve strong market presence within urban cultural consumption. Her ability to meet such demanding artistic standards is closely tied to her systematic training at the USC Thornton School of Music, where she studied under distinguished pianist and chamber musician Professor Kevin Fitz-Gerald, an experience that broadened her international perspective.
Following the strong reception of "In Search of Lost Dream in A Summer’s Night", Gao was invited on September 9, 2023, to participate in "The Nightingale and Starlight" guided listening concert in Hangzhou. This program was part of Zhejiang Province’s “Art for the People” initiative, designed to promote accessibility to high art. In this performance, Gao emphasized public music education and audience engagement, guiding listeners through the meanings of the works in accessible language. This practice of "guided listening " highlighted her warmth and communicative ability as an "art popularizer, " complementing the rigor she demonstrated on the jury panel.
Importantly, these two roles—as juror and performer—mutually reinforce one another in her career. The rigor she applies as a juror stems from her extensive stage experience, while the empathy cultivated in public performance enriches her sensitivity as an evaluator. Her acute perception of tonal variation, precise control of phrasing and breathing, and comprehensive grasp of musical structure all derive from long-term performance practice; meanwhile, her communication skills honed in guided listening allow her to better understand the expressive intentions of young contestants, offering constructive suggestions while upholding professional standards. This ability to balance rigor with warmth is precisely what the profession values as a "complete artistic persona."
Looking to the future, Gao does not confine herself to the traditional framework of classical music but instead seeks to expand the expressive boundaries of the piano. She incorporates elements of popular music and electronic dance music (EDM), embeds piano themes into contemporary sonic and rhythmic design, and explores live interactions between piano and electronic sound. These cross-genre explorations not only broaden the artistic potential of the instrument but also open new pathways for younger audiences to engage with classical music. At the same time, from the jury table to the concert stage and the guided listening hall, Gao consistently finds a balance between "authority" and "approachability"—upholding the highest standards of professional integrity in evaluation, fulfilling the artistic value of works with refined execution on stage, and connecting with audiences through accessible language in public settings. By combining authority with innovation, she is shaping a new performance paradigm that unites artistic depth with communicative reach.
