Canadian pianist Tony Siqi Yun is making his Royal Conservatory debut — also a Toronto recital debut — at Koerner Hall on November 23. He’s bringing a mixed program that ranges from the Baroque to the avant garde.
Born and raised in Toronto, Tony Siqi Yun was the Gold Medalist at the First China International Music Competition (2019), and was awarded the Rheingau Music Festival’s 2023 Lotto-Förderpreis.
The wins launched his career as a soloist and recitalist. Now 23, he has appeared with many of the world’s major orchestras, and on prominent stages. In the 2025/26 season he’ll be performing with Orchestre Métropolitain, Louisville Orchestra, Las Vegas Philharmonic, and Lincoln Symphony, among others, along with recital debuts this season include Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw, Flagey,
Harrogate, The Royal Conservatory, and Celebrity Series of Boston.
Yun graduated from The Juilliard school in 2024, where he studied as a Jerome L. Greene Fellow. He’s continuing his studies there towards an Artistic Diploma.
LV spoke to Yun about the recital.
Tony Siqi Yun: The Interview
Yun’s career has been a whirlwind of activity since the 2023 win at Rheingau. “Rheingau for sure. I went there as a prize winner through Steinway.” He relates receiving the email about receiving the prize from his manager in 2022, just a couple of weeks after his concert debut.
“I was very surprised. It was a huge honour.”
Since then, there have been many memorable moments.
“If I had to name one more, of course Carnegie with Orchestre Métropolitain and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who is my mentor. We work [together] regularly. We played Rach 2, and that was one of the first pieces we worked on,” he adds. “These two things really stood out in the past couple of years.”
Playing the New York venue is of course a milestone in any performer’s career. “It’s just so emotional to make the Carnegie debut.” After working in Philadelphia backstage with Nézet-Séguin, performing on the Carnegie stage with him was icing on the cake.
“I never thought I would make my Carnegie debut with him,” he says. “I was so nervous. But I think he gods of Carnegie were with me.”
The Recital Program
The Toronto recital program includes:
- Johann Sebastian Bach: Chaconne from Partita No. 2 for Violin in D Minor, BWV 1004/BV B24 (arr. Busoni)
- Robert Schumann: Theme and Variations in E flat Major, WoO 24 (“Ghost Variations”)
- Franz Liszt: “Après une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi una sonata” from Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161
- Luciano Berio: Wasserklavier
- Johannes Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, op. 5
It begins with Bach.
“This is one of my favourite pieces to play, the Chaconne. It has this element of relentlessness. You think it will end at certain points, but it continues, and continues again,” he says. “The theme keeps going — it never stops,” he adds.
“Bach originally wrote this as a violin piece,” he continues, noting that, as many scholars believe, Bach wrote the piece as a musical response to the death of his first wife Maria Barbara in 1720. “It’s sophisticated. It’s almost a romantic piece, and was made even more so by making it a piano piece.”
It’s followed on the program by Schumann’s Theme and Variations. “It’s maybe an unusual piece. It’s the very last piece that Schumann wrote before he was admitted to the mental asylum,” he says. “I think that Schumann, the theme, he said […] he heard angelic sounds in his sleep. It’s quite haunting actually,” he notes.
“When it begins, it’s unusually warm, but as the piece goes on, it become hauntingly beautiful, but also deeply — I say it’s like a sword turning in your stomach, but behind a beautiful veil.”
Franz Liszt’s S. 161 closes the first half of the recital.
“I studied this quite intensely in college in a liberal arts class,” Yun says. The work is based on the first book of Dante’s Inferno, The Divine Comedy, where Virgil takes the author on a tour of hell.
“I think this piece takes what Dante sees in hell. Also, moments of introspection, and moments when Dante doesn’t want to go on,” he explains. “It’s very challenging to play. It’s easy to make it sound violent.”
He notes that the key is to maintain a balance between the intense emotion and musicality. “This piece has all the aspects of Liszt that we talk about — his lyrical side, his technical side, his dramatic side.”
Performing it takes on a certain weight. “I have all the responsibilities. We kind of get lost in our music making. We can make the piece very loud, very violent.”
As he points out, the first half of the piece is an emotional journey, and its nuances, performed with thought, balance out the rest.
The Program: Second Half
The second half begins with Italian composer Luciano Berio’s 1965 work, Wasserklavier (Water Piano).
“It’s a very sharp contrast to the first half. It’s almost like a painting — a colour painting with sound,” he says. “It’s a short piece.”
It comes before Brahms’ Piano Sonata No. 3.
“I added Berio before Brahms. It’s like standing before Mount Everest. I wanted the Berio to have a contrast with Brahms, so that the Brahms has even more power.”
For Tony, Brahms is an old favourite.
“I just did this on tour in Europe. It’s one of the pieces, for me, no matter how many times I play it, I just love it more and more.”
He likens the first movement to “two hearts locked in love in the moonlight”. “It’s a conversation between two loving parts,” he says.
“Playing Brahms, it feels like playing a whole symphony,” he says. It offers many colour palettes. “It’s probably my most favourite piece.”
He’s eager to hear it with Koerner Hall’s superior acoustics.
The Recital
Brahms concludes the recital.
“With how it ends — Bach to Brahms — it has a very triumphant ending.”
He developed the program with a conscious addition of both darkness and light.
“I played this program for the very first time in 2021. It was one of the very first concerts I played,” he notes. That came just after the COVID pandemic.
He’s looking forward to bringing it home.
“I was actually born in Toronto, so to make my debut there is quite special,” he says.
“I can’t wait. It’s not every concert, my entire family can go to.”
- Find details and tickets for the November 23 recital [HERE].
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