Mei Rui, Piano

Biography

Mei Rui was born in Shanghai, China and began her piano studies at the age of three.  She has given solo recitals in Beijing, Brussels, Hong Kong, New Haven, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Taiwan, Fort Worth, and Vienna, and has soloed with the Beijing Radio Symphony, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestras, the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra, and Yale Symphony Orchestra. 

Ms. Rui studied in Shanghai Conservatory of Music from 1986 to 1997.  Before immigrating with her parents to the United States in 1997, she was the winner of numerous regional and national competitions.  Her playing was broadcasted many times on China national television and aboard.  While she was a full-scholarship student at Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division, she won the Van Gelder Memorial Award and the McDermett Scholarship, and was prizewinners in the Kingsville International Competition and the Kosciusko Chopin Competition.  In 2001, she won the Manhattan School of Music Concerto competition and performed Rachmaninoff’s First Piano Concerto with MSM Symphony.  In the same year, Ms. Rui was admitted into the Juilliard School, but chose to attend Yale to pursue her passion for biochemistry, medicine and music.  At Yale, she won the Yale William Waite Concerto Competition and performed Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with Yale Symphony in 2003.  In 2004, she won the Yale Recital Competition.  She was a recipient of the Joseph Selden Memorial Award for excellence in the Arts, and the Sheffield Scientific Scholarship in 2004.   Being an active chamber musician, Ms. Rui’s piano trio was selected to perform in the Yale Chamber Music Celebration Concert in 2004.  Ms. Rui was a full scholarship recipient at the TCU Cliburn Institute in 1997.  She was awarded the Ronit Lowenthal fellowship in Solo Piano to attend Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara in the summer of 2005.  In summer, 2006, she attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  She was one of the two pianists selected to participate in the prestigious Taos School of Music in the summer of 2007.

Ms. Rui studied with Phillip Kawin in Manhattan School of Music.  She received her Bachelor degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and a Master degree from Yale School of Music.  In May 2007, she finished her post-graduate Artist Diploma in Piano under the guidance of Claude Frank and Peter Frankl.