Born into a musical family in Shanghai — his mother is violinist Yu Lina — Li's musical journey started at age 5. At 16, he would go on to win the grand prize at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris.

His career flourished at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied under the legendary Mieczyslaw Horszowski.

Andrew Hall, an audience member who lives in Cold Spring, New York, and is originally from London, told China Daily: "It is kind of mesmerizing to watch his hands work, you wonder 'How does his hands work with his brain?' Not to throw around a stereotype, but it was almost like he was doing tai chi with the piano.

"He grew up in China, then went to Paris. It's a beautiful synthesis of growing up in one world and then situating himself in the European culture, then the United States," Hall said. "He has a foot in each of those cultures."

Li has shared the stage with some of the world's most renowned orchestras, including the Berlin Radio Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra National de France, the Nice Symphony, and the Atlanta Symphony.

His groundbreaking 1987 US tour included a performance of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major at Carnegie Hall that was widely praised. He also has held pivotal roles such as artistic director of the Musicians Emergency Fund of New York and vice-president of the Piano Society of the Chinese Musicians Association.

Carlos Penalba, an audience member from New Jersey, watched Li perform from the second row. "It was beautiful," he told China Daily. "Being so close to the show, my first time ever, it was amazing to watch his hands move. That was so intriguing to watch the passion come out of his fingers."