Meet the teenage violinist who made her debut at four and has played with Westlife and London Symphony Orchestra
As a young girl, Leia Zhu loved playing the violin for family and friends. But if she couldn’t find a willing audience, she did what any inventive child would do, she created her own.
“If we had friends round, I would ask to play for them and if nobody wanted to listen to me I’d put all my toys on the sofa and play them a mini concert,” she says.
This enthusiasm belied an even greater talent. At the age of just four, Leia made her solo debut in the North East Last Night of the Proms at Newcastle City Hall in front of a packed house, having only picked up a violin for the first time a few months earlier.
Her list of achievements is dizzying. By the time she was 12, Leia had performed in more than 18 countries and in 2019 (at the same age) she became the youngest artist to be managed by the renowned international classical music agency HarrisonParrott.
She was appointed artist-in-residence with the London Mozart Players aged just 14 and has performed with eminent ensembles and orchestras around the world, appearing as a soloist with the likes of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, and National Orchestra of Belgium. She even found time, after finishing her GCSEs, to write a book – Bows, Strings and Dreams – about her musical journey.
Her next stop is Harrogate on February 9 when she performs a recital as part of this year’s Harrogate International Sunday Series concerts at the Old Swan Hotel. Her programme, created especially for Harrogate, features Bach’s Toccata and Fugue No 2 in D minor, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No 2 in D major, Dvorak’s Sonatina for Violin and Piano in G major, Wieniawski’s Variation on an Original Theme and Rossini’s iconic Figaro from The Barber of Seville.
“It’s my first time performing in Harrogate and I’m really looking forward to it,” says Leia. “The whole programme is a journey through some serious emotions to some lighter ones. My aim is to showcase the violin as a very emotive instrument and to show its lyricism, with some technical fireworks thrown in.”
Leia’s story is a remarkable one. Born in Newcastle in 2006 to Chinese parents, she was three-and-a-half years old when she first played the violin.
“My parents aren’t musicians but they love listening to music and we were listening to the radio when I was little and I said, ‘that instrument sounds cool, I want to try it.’”
Her father, who learned to play the violin when he was a boy, showed her how to hold the instrument. “I started having lessons with a lady and after a couple of months she rang my parents and said I should move on to a different teacher who could offer me more.” Leia was still only four at the time.
She says the first piece she learned to play was Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. “I’ll never forget the moment I finished it. I felt like I was on top of a mountain,” she says.
Then came the concert at Newcastle City Hall playing in front of 2,000 people. “A BBC journalist asked me, ‘are you nervous?’ I didn’t know what it meant. I think I was just very excited. I remember standing on stage and bowing and all these people were clapping for me. I wasn’t sure how long to stay there.”
The following year she did a small tour of venues in the North of England and at the age of six went on a nine-city tour of Spain, after which she told her mum, “This is what I want to do.”
She was taken on by a teacher based at the Royal College of Music in London and really started to flourish. “I’m fortunate that I identified my passion at such a young age,” she says.
Her musical prowess has taken her to some unlikely places. “I used to travel to Russia a lot when I was younger, not only to places like Moscow and St Petersburg but to places in Siberia and the Tatarstan republic.
"The people were so warm and friendly and there were these babushkas who came to the concerts and hand-knitted me scarves and gloves and gave me presents. I have a huge Russian doll collection.”
Her career is already littered with highlights – during the pandemic in 2021 she performed with the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle at the BMW Classics, watched by thousands of people in Trafalgar Square and many more online.
In December that year, she collaborated with the band Westlife, performing a violin solo on their song ‘You Raise Me Up’ which was streamed live on WeChat garnering 27 million views.
“I feel I have this responsibility with my music,” she says. “It’s not just about performing, my goal is to promote classical music to a wider audience.”
Listening to Leia talk, it’s easy to forget that she’s still a teenager. “What I love about being a musician is the impact you can have. That’s why whenever I go to different countries, and here in the UK, I try to go to schools and do music workshops to introduce children to classical music and give them the chance to fall in love with it the same way I did.”
She’s in the process of working on an album and has recitals pencilled in around the world in 2025. “I’m excited to see what happens next.
"I never planned that by this age I would have done all the things I have. There’s only so much you can plan. You just have to be ready for any opportunities when they come to you.”
Leia Zhu, The Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, February 9, 11am. Tickets are available from the Harrogate International Festivals website Home - Harrogate International Festivals or by calling the Box Office on 01423 562 303.