Highly respected in his day as a composer and pianist, Walter Niemann’s prolific output for piano is romantic in style, with an underlying sense of passion and impressionist exoticism. This idiom fell out of favour after the Second World War, but today we can rediscover the generous expressiveness in Niemann’s First Sonata and the plangent and consolatory emotions of the ‘Nordic’ Second Sonata.

Bing Bing Li was, at the age of eight, given the accolade of ‘Star of the Future’ by the Government of Jilin Province in China. Her inherent musical sense and dazzling technique provided early opportunities to perform on concert platforms throughout China. At the age of ten she won China’s National Piano competition, making her recording début on the National label. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, graduating in 2011 with distinction, and gaining her DipRAM. She was the only pianist to receive a full scholarship at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels and was the recipient of most prizes to be awarded at the RAM during her studies.

She has since taught at the RAM and Kings College, and is in constant demand for her piano master-classes. Now resident in Britain, she enjoys a successful career as a soloist and recitalist there, elsewhere in Europe, in North America and in China. In addition to her wide ranging repertoire, she has a real passion for ‘rediscovering’ music of composers celebrated in their lifetime, but currently neglected.

• Niemann: Fantasie-Mazurka, Op. 53
• Niemann: Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 60
• Niemann: Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 75 'Nordic'