Just in: Chopin winner signs management deal

Just in: Chopin winner signs management deal

News

norman lebrecht

January 06, 2022

The sought-after Canadian pianist Bruce Liu has signed on for global management with Hannover-based Liu-Kotow, a real coup for the relatively small agency.

Their other pianists include Buchbinder, Pogorelich and Yuliana Avdeeva.

 

 

 

Comments

  • Tobias Hartmann says:

    You mean Yulianna Avdeeva!

  • Ya what says:

    According to his instagram, he joined them ‘because of the hot looking ladies roster’. Lol!

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    Great opportunity!! Now can we find another name apart from Bruce??!!

  • music_bird says:

    I can see why its super great news for this small agency. The First Prize winner of the Chopin Competition would have received excellent offers from all the very best agencies worldwide. My humble question therefore is why would he choose this one ? I am at a loss and have trouble comprehending the logic of his thinking. I guess it must be just me…

    Anyway, I am a big fan of Bruce Xiaoyu Liu and I sincerely wish him a very successful and fulfilling music career !!

    • Jonas says:

      This agency has another First Prize Chopin Competition winner, amazing pianist Yuliana Avdeeva, who joined them, leaving the big management last year. On their roster are many other great artists. It is very smart decision, to choose boutique and experienced international agency, to get very exclusive, personal representation.

    • AK says:

      I actually think it is an extremely smart move!
      A boutique agency like Liu Kotow has built up rising stars like Bomsori Kim and Anastasia Kobekina, it is definitely not coincidence. Bruce Liu is still quite young, but he must be someone who has really strong visions about his own career or really good advisor, so he didn’t choose those gigantic companies like every other young artists would do.

      • John Borstlap says:

        The big managements are like supermarkets, and the boutique ones are much more personal. The biggies have a burdensome overhead, which makes it difficult to sustain, while the smaller ones have more space for initiative and manoeuvre. And they are much more pelasant to work with. In the supermarket agency you are a mere number.

      • music_bird says:

        Thank you for your comment. It helps me understand it much better.

  • John Borstlap says:

    As soon as a young prize winner is sucked into the ‘music business’, PR people turn him/her into a fashion model, dressing-up the product with alluring references to the world of glamour, wealth, gucci bags and dior smells, anything that distracts from content and is meant to tempt ignorami to buy tickets for some kind of show.

    • Michael says:

      How do you know Liu wasn’t in to those things before? Who says it is the PR people who are dressing him up this way? Not every true artist needs to look like they live in a garret, burning pages of poetry for warmth. By judging him from his photos, who is being superficial?

      • John Borstlap says:

        The presentation of artists by agencies, promotors, concert halls, orchestras etc. etc. follows the general trends of commercialism. It’s there for everybody to see. Even the artists themselves when having their website built, think it will increase their chances if they follow the herd in presentation style. It is hard to imagine a perfomer, especially a young one, saying ‘no’ to what they will perceive as the Zeitgeist – they want engagements in a ‘competative market’, and have no interest in ‘battling the business’, they need ‘the business’ to get on.

  • Nijinsky says:

    Because it’s like saying that it’s against the law for one to make corn flour Pizzas in Italy, or that there’s another one who sings this as beautiful (which there isn’t!) if so please let me know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbWTl8hzBpM

    Or that one can’t lay to rest a program and as its lying there know that its over with, but have to go back and back and back and back again and see whether there’s another of “that” category, who will surpass it. Some people just are one of a kind, not the kind that makes out they are.

    Or as if Jesus needs an impresario, a media assistant, a PR manager, a hair dresser, and the studio of mind geek mania that goes with which one!?

    • John Borstlap says:

      Actually, Jesus HAD a PR team who worked like hell to get his image across, only it was set-up after his unexpected and quite humiliating passing. It has now been in business for almost 2000 years, and is the most effective PR exercise ever, although there have been quite a few bumps in the road. It has even spawn some competition, who did without a number of frills, but all in all it can be called a success, if not uncontested.

      • Anon says:

        Unexpected ? Predicted by His Biblical teachings. Humiliating ? Dying on a cross to accept our sins is humiliating ? I see you are on the wide road.

  • Lim says:

    Bruce is a rare gem. I wish him all the best in his budding career. The management company’s job is ensure his interests are well taken care of. Congratulations Bruce! Just concentrate on your playing and letting us enjoy your genius for decades to come.

    • John Borstlap says:

      A performer has no ‘genius’, the best he/she can get is greatness, and that should be enough. ‘Genius’ is for the creative kind, not the recreative.

  • Joshua says:

    The relatively new Germany-based agency seems to be founded by a couple consisting of a Polish violinist who studied/performed in Germany and a Taiwanese marketing expert working in Germany for years. Might be a risky move for Bruce but still makes sense for someone popular in Poland (by winning the competition and being somewhat a fan-favorite at the same time) and at the same time speaking fluent mandarin.

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