James Yi is 15 years old and has been learning piano with Dr. Irina Koulikova since age 5. He started performing on the concert stage very early, playing in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York (2017) when he was 9. After this successful performance, he continued participating in various piano competitions in DC, MD, and VA, receiving several awards and prizes. He played at Carnegie Hall in New York (2018, 2022, 2024), the Terrace Theatre at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (2018, 2021), The Mansion at Strathmore, and the WMTA Viola Hartman Awards at the Catholic University of America, among others. In addition, he received the MSMTA award for Level 8 Theory Testing in MD. He won various Charleston International Music Competitions (4th prize, 2022; 2nd prize, 2023; 1st prize, 2024), and won 1st prize in the American Fine Arts Festival Competition “Golden Era of Romantic Music” (2024, 2025) and was invited to play in the Winners Recital at Carnegie Hall. Alongside piano practice and performance, he actively participates in his school’s robotics team, is passionate about engineering, and enjoys volunteering in his community.
You can find James’s 2022 International Piano Competition performance here.
You can find James’s 2023 International Piano Competition performance here.
You can find James’s 19th Century Music Competition 2024 piano performance here.
Watch James Xiuyuan Yi perform Waldesrauschen by Franz Liszt on the piano for the 2025 Virtuoso Music Competition as part of the Charleston International Music Competition.