Top pianist visiting Grass Valley

What: Pianist Ang Li

Who: In Concert Sierra

Where: Seventh-day Adventist Church, 12889 Osborne Hill Road, Grass Valley

When: Sunday, March 17. Pre-concert is 1:15 p.m. and concert is 2 p.m.

Tickets: General admission $26 and children 17 and under free.

Information: 530-273-3990 or visit inconcertsierra.org

GRASS VALLEY — Pianist Ang Li has chosen a program for her In Concert Sierra debut that demonstrates her virtuosity and delivers adjectives a concert-goer thrives on: complex, captivating, powerful, passionate, exquisite.

Ranked among the top 30 pianists in the world at the 2009 Cliburn Competition, Li visits Grass Valley on Sunday, March 17 at 2 p.m.

Li, who has played all three biggies — Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center — has an extensive repertoire that ranges from early baroque to contemporary music. She made her first public appearance at age 6 at the Beijing Concert Hall.

By age 13, she was playing at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall.

Li is an internationally acclaimed piano virtuoso whose performance credits and talents reach well beyond her years. Her youth, talent, personality and audience appeal, truly make her one of the world’s rising classical piano stars.

Her program includes favorites such as “7 Fantasies, Op. 116″ by Johannes Brahms, “Allegro de Concierto” by Enrique Granados, “Liebestod” by Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, and several beloved works of Frederick Chopin.

Her program includes one unusual piece, “Memories of an Ancient Garden,” by one of Canada’s most successful living composers, Alexina Louie. The piece was written in 1988 to commemorate the opening of the new Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. Her music represents the mixture of Eastern and Western music.

“I love the whole program,” said Julie Hardin, executive director, “but I’m most excited to hear ‘Memories of an Ancient Garden’ which evokes the sense of stumbling upon a forgotten garden that you are tentatively exploring, it’s quite exhilarating.”

“Playing with a pianist like Ang Li is amazing,” Ken Hardin said. “When two pianists who are used to owning an entire piece of piano real estate are asked to share the 88 keys, it’s a choreographed dance. When you perform with a pianist of Ang Li’s caliber, you need to know how to tango, and tango well.”

Sunday’s performance will include a pre-concert forum at 1:15 p.m. hosted by pianist Aileen James.

The concert is sponsored by Corinne Pryor, and by Robin Runbeck in honor of her parents Joan and Lance Goddard’s 40th wedding anniversary and their dedication and service as board members to In Concert Sierra.

Tickets are $26 for general admission and children 17 and under free.

For more information call 530-273-3990 or visit inconcertsierra.org.