Anne Akiko Meyers & Li Jian
Biography Anne Akiko Meyers & Li Jian
Anne Akiko Meyers
GRAMMY® Award–winning violinist, is one of today’s most influential classical artists, celebrated for her electrifying performances, groundbreaking collaborations, and extraordinary commitment to expanding the violin repertoire. One of the most sought-after soloists with the world’s leading orchestras, Meyers has commanded the concert stage since her teens and recorded an extensive discography of close to 50 recordings, many featuring works written for and premiered by her.
Hailed by The Strad as “the Wonder Woman of commissioning,” Meyers has inspired an extraordinary body of new music from some of the world’s most celebrated composers, including Arvo Pärt, John Corigliano, Arturo Márquez, Philip Glass, Michael Daugherty, Billy Childs, Morten Lauridsen, Wynton Marsalis, Somei Satoh, and Eric Whitacre. She was recently named the first-ever Artistic Partner of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, recognizing her distinctive artistic vision and collaborative leadership.
Highlights of Meyers’ 2026–27 season include the European premiere of Arturo Márquez’s Fandango with Ludovic Morlot and the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and appearances with the New World and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. She performs Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No.1 with the Grant Park Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, and joins the Los Angeles Master Chorale in celebrating Grant Gershon’s 25th anniversary in a special concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
At the Library of Congress, she premieres a new work by Billy Childs and performs Michael Daugherty’s Blue Electra with the Santa Barbara and Reno Symphony Orchestras.
October marks the 25th Anniversary reissue of the remastered vinyl edition of East Meets West with pianist Li Jian, featuring works by Debussy, Messiaen, Ravel, and Somei Satoh’s Birds in Warped Time II. This performance was featured in the winning presentation for the World Trade Center Memorial design.
In January, celebrating Philip Glass’s 90th birthday, Platoon releases Meyers’s performance of Philip Glass Violin Concerto No. 1 on vinyl, recorded with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Meyers also releases Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, arranged for Meyers by the composer, Animals Carnaval, Gene Pritsker’s Brazilian-inspired reimagining of Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, alongside The Girl from Ipanema, and works by George Gershwin, José Luis Merlin and Heitor Villa-Lobos.
In the 2025–26 season, Meyers premiered, recorded and released
The Pacific Has No Memory by Eric Whitacre, co-commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Meyers also previewed this work leading two community concerts at St. Matthew’s Church in the Pacific Palisades commemorating the first anniversary of the fires that devastated the Palisades and Altadena communities with Lucinda Carver, the Pacific Strings, Grant Gershon, and members of the Los Angeles Master Chorale.
In 2024, her recording of Arturo Márquez’s Fandango with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic earned two GRAMMY® nominations and two Latin GRAMMY® Awards for Best Classical Album and Best Contemporary Composition. Since its 2021 premiere at the Hollywood Bowl, the work has been performed nearly 50 times by 19 orchestras worldwide, including the LA Philharmonic’s triumphant return to Carnegie Hall after a 32-year absence.
Meyers commissioned and performed the world premiere of Billy Childs’s
In the Arms of the Beloved with Childs, Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The project was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and received a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Choral Performance alongside works by Ola Gjeilo and Eric Whitacre. Other notable recent releases include Michael Daugherty’s Blue Electra with the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller, and works by Philip Glass, including New Chaconne, which Glass composed for Meyers, and the Violin Concerto No. 1, with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Meyers has appeared twice on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, NPR’s Tiny Desk, CBS Sunday Morning, Evening at Pops, Great Performances, The View, and the Emmy Awards, as well as in a Countdown with Keith Olbermann segment that became the program’s third most-watched story of the year. She has graced the covers of Gramophone, Strings, and The Strad, and performed at landmark events including the John Williams Hollywood Bowl Stage Naming, Australia’s Bicentennial Celebration, the opening of the Arvo Pärt Centre, GRAMMY Legends honoring John Williams, performances for Emperor and Empress Akihito of Japan and Queen Máxima with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at T-Mobile Park and Dodger Stadium.
Meyers is the recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Distinguished Alumna Award, and an Honorary Doctorate from The Colburn School, and is a member of the Asian Hall of Fame. She serves on the Boards of The Juilliard School and the Dudamel Foundation.
She performs on the legendary 1741 Ex-Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù violin.
Born in San Diego and raised in Southern California, Meyers traveled eight hours round trip from the Mojave Desert to Pasadena for lessons with Alice Schoenfeld and Eleonore Schoenfeld, often practicing in the front seat of the family Volkswagen Beetle. At 14, she moved to New York to study at The Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay, Masao Kawasaki, and Felix Galimir; signed with management at 16; and recorded her debut album at 18 at Abbey Road Studios.
Li Jian
Hailed as “a pianist who plays with real panache” by the Chicago Tribune, Jian Li performs in the foremost music centers of the United States, Europe, and the Far East. Professor Jian Li, dean of the department of piano of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, choosed the first C. Bechstein Grand Piano D 282 for his conservatory.
Li Jian was born in Shanghai in 1965 in a musical family. He is the son of the Chinese renowned violinist Yu Lina, who is best-known for the violin concerto The Butterfly Lovers. He began his music studies at the age of six and studied with professor Hong Teng at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He continued his education at the Conservatoire Nationale de Paris, with Pierre Sancan, and The Curtis Institute of Music, with the legendary Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and studied conducting with Jorma Panula.
Jian Li gained worldwide recognition in 1981, when at the age of 16 he won the second prize in the prestigious Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud international competition in Paris. This honor brought him opportunities for playing in European countries including France, Italy, Germany and Britain. He was also the youngest musician chosen by the Chinese government to perform at the national reception honoring U.S. President Jimmy Carter on his historic visit to China. In 1989, he became the first Mainland Chinese musician to be invited to perform in Taiwan.
As a recitalist, he has performed in such prestigious music centers as Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Ambassador Auditorium in Los Angeles, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Theatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Symphony Hall in Osaka and Berlin Philharmonic Hall.He was Assistant Conductor of the New Jersey State Opera from 1998 through 2001. In 2000, he was conductor for the production of Verdi’s “Aida” in the Shanghai Arena, with over 80,000 people in attendance at each performance. Jian Li has been Artistic Director and Conductor of the Hunan Symphony Orchestra since 2003; and recently he has been named Artistic Director and Conductor of the Tokyo Virtuoso. Since 2004 Jian Li has also been Artistic Director of the Musicians Emergency Fund of New York.In an interview Jian Li said: “A musician doesn’t have to exhibit his own style. His nature is revealed with the music he plays. A good musician should focus on the music and the daring nature of the composer. Otherwise you’ll be wrong from the beginning.”
