Chinese pianist Sunny Li causes social media storm

2 min readFeb 24, 2017

Sunny Li, the young and extremely talented concert pianist caused quite the storm on social media recently when her videos of her playing two grand pianos simultaneously went viral on Classic FM’s sites.

Whilst this might sound fairly mundane, the ruckus was due to the playing style that Sunny had to adopt in order to play both pianos at the same time, which some may consider provocative. As a result, the two videos combined racked up over 1 million views and hundreds of comments. Although most of these comments were complimentary of Sunny’s playing and ambition, others took the ‘that isn’t so hard’ approach, whilst some were even in the form of what some may consider a sexist tirade, commenting on Sunny’s playing position.

You can watch the first video here:

For Sunny, who had never experienced such exposure in her homeland of China, the whole experience was somewhat overwhelming, leaving Sunny confused and upset. However, as a focused and determined musician, Sunny was not going to let this get to her for long.

Although she found some of the comments offensive, Sunny is an advocate of equality for all, stating that ‘There is no reason why women can’t play like men, they are just as equal. It’s the modern day — sometimes women are even better than the men!’

As well as this, Sunny is keen to make classical music more accessible in the hope that more young people will give it a chance. She feels that there is a sensibility and emotion to classical music that cannot be found in contemporary genres, particularly pop and this is the idea that she wants to put across to the youth of today.

Sunny has released her first album, Sunny Li Piano, which she will be promoting in her upcoming UK tour starting this spring and she has also been working with Quite Great music PR agency in order to increase her exposure. You can see her dates here:

24/02/2017: St. James Church, London

07/03/2017: Great St. Mary’s Church, Cambridge

17/03/2017: St. James Church, London, with orchestra

25/03/2017: St. Margaret Church, Oxford

26/03/2017: Stanborough Park Church, Watford

01/04/2017: Faversham Assembly Rooms

07/04/2017: St. John’s, Waterloo

28/04/2017: St. John’s, Waterloo

12/05/2017: Wigmore Hall, London

27/05/2017: St. George’s Church, Beckenham

16/08/2017: Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge

http://sunnylipiano.com/