Sherri Lun

A twenty year old pianist with a curriculum that would be the pride and joy of someone twice Sherri Lun’s age and who is already in her third year at the RAM under the expert guidance of Christopher Elton .
Her pedigree shone through from the very first notes of her KT presentation recital with a Bach Toccata of absolute clarity and chiselled beauty.Knotty twine that she unraveled to reveal Bach’s early genial invention.

Schubert’s great C minor Sonata was the centre piece for this hour long recital on the magnificent Steinway D that is only to be found in the true home of those magnificent instruments in London. Schubert in Beethovenian mood played with dynamic drive and moments of sublime beauty . Schubert tried hard to be tempestuous and imperious like Beethoven in C minor but his seemless mellifluous outpourings always appear even in stormy weather .Rays of light that Sherri played with disarming simplicity and under Elton’s (Christopher not John!) it was of sterling musicianship ,style and above all an architectural shape that gave strength to a masterwork that was to be part of the composers untimely ‘swansong’ .

But it was Cesar Franck that ignited Sherri’s imagination and unlocked a kaleidoscope of colour that she had kept hidden behind her masterly respect for the monumental giants that preceded it .
Playing now with passionate abandon and bathed in pedal she showed us what Anton Rubinstein meant when he described the pedal as the soul of the piano.Masterly playing nowhere more than in the chorale where the chords unwound with golden streams of sounds leading to the beacons that shone at it extremities.A fugue that was bathed in the fantasy that she denied herself in Bach and here was overwhelming in its impact as she played with mastery and passionate abandon.

Fireworks indeed as Sherri unleashed her unabashed passionate abandon on a hall of very distinguished guests who come to these recitals of the Keyboard Trust knowing that ‘trust’ is the key word when great talent is on show.

And the real fireworks Sherri saved for the encore where the luminosity of La Marseillese shone out with purity, glowing as it arose out of the embers of the astonishing display that Debussy could conjure up almost outdoing Ravel for pianistic exertions of a serious kind!

A conversation in public revealed a charming young lady with a massive talent as she described how she had started playing the piano at four and the viola at five.Coming from a family of professional people ,not musicians, she had been touched by a magic spark that must have been lurking in her genes .

Both parents were in the audience and have transferred to London to share their life with their only child.

Discussions over a glass or two of Prosecco together with her teacher Christopher Elton reveal one of the few teachers who have a passion for sharing music with others and that at 80 ( he celebrates in Brighton with his son on Sunday ) after a days teaching at the RAM he still has the energy to listen and support his students in their concert appearances .Deep in discussion with the distinguished film director Tony Palmer between each piece , it just shows that real passion has no age limit .Sherri is not only very talented but very lucky to have found someone who can nurture her talent and allow it to blossom as Gordon Green had done for Christopher and I over half a century ago!

 ‘2020 Performing Artist of the Year’
South China Morning Post

Bach Toccata in G major, BWV 916

1. Presto
2. Adagio
3. Allegro (Fuga)

Schubert Sonata in C minor, D. 958

1. Allegro (C minor)
2. Adagio (A♭ major)
3. Menuetto. Allegro — Trio (C minor)
4. Allegro (C minor)

Franck Prelude Chorale and Fugue in B minor, FWV 21

Steinway Hall
44 Marylebone Lane London W 1U2 DB

Wednesday, 24 April 2024, 6.30pm

Named ‘2020 Performing Artist of the Year’ by the South China Morning Post, 20-year-old Sherri Lun majored in piano and viola as a junior student at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is currently studying with Prof. Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music with a full scholarship supported by the Academy and the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme.

In 2013, Sherri was selected as a Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation. After her concerto debut with the Midwest Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival at age 11, she was invited to perform again at Ravinia the following year, as well as in Millennium Park (Chicago) and at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), followed by collaborations with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists, Hong Kong Youth Orchestra and the Kölner Kammerorchester.

Sherri has participated in festivals including Oxford, Pianale, Frost Chopin, Beijing International and the Summer Academy at the Universität Mozarteum, Salzburg. Still in her second year at the RAM, Sherri has won the Sterndale Bennett Prize and the 2023 Chung Nung Lee Prize. She has also been invited to perform in both the Academy’s autumn and summer piano festivals, the Bicentenary Chamber Festival and the Bicentenary celebration concert at Wigmore Hall.

Sherri is also a prize-winner in multiple international competitions including the Robert Schumann Competition (Düsseldorf), Zhuhai Mozart, ASEAN Chopin, Singapore and Steinway & Sons Youth. She was also a semi-finalist in the Aarhus International Piano Competition. In Hong Kong, she won numerous competitions and one of her performances was broadcast by Radio Television Hong Kong. In 2017, Sherri was awarded the ‘Highest Scorer of the Year’ prize by Trinity College London for her LTCL recital. Most recently, she undertook a four-recital tour in Malaysia, and released her debut CD, ‘Romantic Reveries’ on the KNS Classical label, featuring works by Schumann and Franck. As an active chamber musician, she regularly performs with the Adatto Piano Quartet and with orchestras as a violist.