Li-Chin Li is a Taiwanese sheng soloist, composer, improviser, and performer with a solid background in Western classical and contemporary Chinese music. She works within contemporary music performance and investigates the evolving role of the sheng within current practice. She approaches the instrument as a relational medium connecting sound, body, space, and technological systems in collaborative contexts.
Through improvisation, site-responsive work, and cross-disciplinary collaboration, she engages with liveness and interaction, treating performance as a continuously evolving state. Her performance language is shaped by the interplay between internal breath control and externally triggered physical actions.
Building on this practice, sustained cross-cultural collaboration and artistic research inform her reflection on the intersection of Eastern and Western aesthetics and embodied practice. Her work moves toward an open and indeterminate process of becoming, rather than fixed representation.
On Friday 24 April 2026, Li-Chin Li will be opening the TransTraditionale Festival at Radialsystem Berlin with an improvised studio session and an outdoor performance on the Spree river entangling space, movement, and the sound of water; she will also perform at the festival on Saturday, 25 April 2026.
3 FACTS
1: Calmness is precious.
2: Focusing on myself is precious.
3: Letting things happen is precious.
Questions and Answers:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
The musicians I have worked with and encountered have continuously reshaped my relationship with my instrument—the sheng.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
Since I first encountered the piano at the age of four, creating music has always felt natural. My Yamaha teacher once told my mother that I could compose, so she recorded my piece “The Lion King” at home on a cassette tape and submitted it to a competition in Japan. I still remember this clearly.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
At different stages, I have been drawn to specific musicians and arrangers, rather than full albums. I would like to recommend Taiwanese artist Sonic Deadhorse and saxophonist Ming-Yen Hsieh’s Non-Confined Space(非/密閉空間).
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
In my memory, every trip to Berlin has been about performing and social encounters. I also see Berlin as a hub where some of the best musicians in the world meet and exchange ideas.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Home.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Creative and design-oriented practices—such as photography, fashion design, and hairstyling—have always interested me.
7. What was the last record/music you bought or listened to?
Lately, I find myself listening to music less with full concentration.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
At this moment in 2026, what I wish for is to collaborate with a composer interested in writing a concerto for sheng that combines contemporary music and electronics.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
I would not call it “the best,” but one of the most unforgettable performances for me was Anne Imhof’s Natures Mortes at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. It was a four-hour immersive work that fully activated the space and brought together a diverse range of performers. I am drawn to how she combines street culture, the fashion industry, and various forms of performance into something with a strong attitude.
Another work is Miet Warlop’s Fruits of Labor. It expanded my understanding of what a musician can be, and led me to train my body—moving from a purely instrumental musician toward a performer with broader awareness and capacity.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
In recent years, I have been working as a collaborating musician with IRCAM researcher Mikhail Malt, continuously testing improvisation with the Somax 2 system. I believe technology is important, but it is always operated by humans. That is why I am ultimately more interested in collaboration with people.
11. What can we expect from your concert at the TransTraditionale in Berlin?
The programs produced by Trickster Orchestra always surprise me. As a performer within it, I know how unique this ensemble is—musicians and instruments from many cultural backgrounds, and an unpredictable performance situation. It is truly worth experiencing the three days of energy in person, especially the spectacular „arrival“ opening in which I will perform and move directly on the Spree and improvise with the water and space—a unique site-specific work I have been dreaming about for many years.
