About

Join us at Cecilia’s Retreat, 1199 Oakland Rd., RR2 in Mahone Bay, on Saturday, June 7 at 4 pm, as we are delighted to welcome three young, international artists who are spending time in Lunenburg as guests of the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance – Canadian violinist Yan Li, Polish pianist Piotr Kozłowski and American cellist Lydia Rhea. This event celebrates the extraordinary opportunities for young musicians and concert goers through LAMP and all proceeds will support these initiatives. Musique Royale is honoured to collaborate with LAMP (www.lamp.ns) in presenting the artists at Cecilia’s Retreat.

About the Artists

Yan Li – violin

Violinist Yan Li is a graduate of McGill University, where she studied with Axel Strauss, Yan is an avid chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral musician. As a soloist, she made her orchestral debut with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Calgary Civic Symphony, and Lethbridge Symphony. Her awards include first prize at the Canadian Music Competition, LSO Young Artist Competition, Calgary Concerto Competition, and a semifinalist in the Montreal Symphony Manulife Competition, At McGill, she was a finalist in the McGill Concerto Competition, Golden Violin Award, and Orchestra Toronto Concerto Competition. She has spent her summers at Morningside Music Bridge, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.

Piotr Kozłowski – piano

Piotr Kozłowski, (Poland) is a versatile pianist with a special affinity towards chamber and contemporary music. After finalizing his studies at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, he continued his education at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, where he served as Graduate Teaching Assistant and received his doctorate guided by Professor Kevin Kenner and Dr. Naoko Takao.

Piotr performed both as a soloist and a chamber musician in Europe and in the United States. His time spent in Vienna as an exchange student triggered his passion towards Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Second Viennese School. He loves baroque, early 20th-century, and contemporary music. His recent projects consist of the Piano-Percussion Chamber Works and Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Piotr recorded and co-created Beeth250ven and was featured on the Interwar Retrospections albums. He premiered works by Donald Scott Stinson, Julia Janiak, and other living composers.

Lydia Rhea – cello

Cellist Lydia Rhea has traveled across the world sharing the power of storytelling through music. A firm believer in increasing accessibility to concert halls and diversifying the classical canon, her work has taken her from Carnegie Hall to Cuba in performing and teaching capacities.

Lydia has performed with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and appeared on NPR’s From theTop with jazz pianist Fred Hersch, with whom she played one of his original compositions in Boston’s Jordan Hall. In July 2023, Lydia was a member of the quartet-in-residence at the European American Musical Alliance Summer Institute in Paris. She previously attended the Sitka International Cello Seminar in Sitka, Alaska, where she studied intensively with concert cellist Zuill Bailey.

Lydia received her Master’s Degree in Cello Performance from The Juilliard School in 2024 where she studied with Natasha Brofsky. While attending Juilliard, she was part of the Honors Chamber Music Program and studied additionally with Areta Zhulla, Catherine Cho, and Joel Krosnick. She previously completed her undergraduate training at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was mentored by Dr. Melissa Kraut, Philip Setzer, and Si-Yan Darren Li. Upon graduating CIM, Lydia received the Speilman Memorial Award for an exceptional cellist and the Kaplow Prize for Uncommon Creativity.

In October 2024, Lydia traveled to Cuba where she taught and performed with students through CAYO, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and empowering students, teachers, and audiences in the US and Cuba. Lydia is an artist with Concerts for Compassion, a NYC-based nonprofit that brings music and education to displaced peoples, and is a Teaching Artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Lydia currently resides in New York City with her cello, Rosie, a Lawrence Wilke instrument made in 2008. You can find her on socials @lydia_cello.