"Days without performances made me think about my job as a pianist," Niu Niu says. "I used to showcase my techniques and my emotions while playing onstage. Now, after the pandemic, I focus on what kinds of messages I can deliver to audiences."

Niu Niu, born in 1997 to a musical family and raised in Xiamen, was given his nickname by his parents, niu being a nod to his birth year, a year of the ox.

It is simple, catchy name, so he adopted it as his stage name, being easy to remember, particularly for Western audiences.

Music has been part of his life from even before he was born. His mother let him listen to Mozart's music pieces during her pregnancy, and after he was born his bedtime music was works by Chopin. Niu Niu's father is a music teacher who taught him to play the piano.

The boy first showed his music talent when he was 3 by playing a piece from John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course, without anyone teaching him. And he held his first solo recital a few weeks after his sixth birthday, with a program including a Mozart piano sonata and a Chopin etude.

When he was 8 he became the youngest student of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and when he was 10 in 2007 he performed Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No 1 at the Pearl Awards in London in the presence of Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. He was admitted by the Juilliard School in New York in 2014 with a full scholarship and graduated in 2018.

"I can still recall the first time I performed onstage," he says. "I wasn't nervous at all. Right after the show I was asked about my performance, I said firmly, 'It was great'. I always enjoy performing onstage, either as a soloist or working with orchestras."

Like many children who learn music, Niu Niu had to sacrifice a lot of time playing outside with his friends. He recalls that when he was about 8 he felt bored and rebellious. Sensing this, his mother asked him to make a decision: to continue or quit.

"She told me to make a choice. I stopped playing piano for a few days, and I then realized how important music was to me. So I decided to continue, and I feel grateful that I made the right decision."

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn