The 3rd Australia International Music Festival (North American Division) took place on December 20–21, 2025, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Composer and pianist Tianci Lu participated as both an adjudicator and as a performer in the festival’s Master Series Concert for the North American division, working along with renown composers adjudicators Ketty Nez and Dan Walker. The competition has multiple competing divisions across the globe besides the North American division hosted in Boston, such as New Zealand, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Beijing, etc.
Lu’s own compositions were featured in the festival’s Master Series concert, performed by violinist Peiwen Su with Lu at the piano. The concert included world premiere performances of her original works, showcasing her dual role as composer and performer within the festival program.
The world premiere of Fading Colors formed a central expressive moment of the program. Written in two movements, In Diminishing Light and Light Again, the work traces an arc from quiet dissolution toward renewal. The opening movement unfolds with fragile violin lines supported by subdued and atmospheric piano textures, evoking the gradual loss of clarity, memory, and brightness. In contrast, the second movement restores momentum and warmth, as piano and violin enter an increasingly luminous dialogue. Throughout the piece, the violin and piano function as equal partners, with the violin shaping long and searching melodic gestures while the piano provides harmonic grounding and evolving color, bringing the work’s themes of fading, reflection, and reemergence vividly to life.
In her role on the jury panel, Lu oversaw the newly established Performer-Composer/ Composition category, which highlights musicians who both compose and perform their own works. Alongside fellow jurors, she evaluated participants’ performances and contributed to the awarding of the festival’s honors.
A PhD candidate in music composition at Princeton University, Lu trained at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, completing a double major in composition and composition for screen in 2020, and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Jazz Piano at the California Institute of the Arts. Her works have been presented internationally, including at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Curtis Theater, as well as at various music festivals worldwide.
