“Spirited and gripping, characterized by verve and dynamism; […] powerful and sonorous”

“Astonishing control”

“She played with breath-taking ease. Zhu not only mastered the parts of the score that required high virtuosity and bravura, but also managed to give lyrical passages in the second movement the necessary emotional intensity. There was a well-deserved round of applause.”

“We confess that we were expecting the usual enfant prodigy, all astounding technical skill and zero interpretative and expressive ability. Our surprise in listening to her was great: Leia has already matured her own sound, her ability to make technical acrobatics not a spectacular end, but a means to give voice to a feeling, an emotion, a spiritual world evoked by sound. Her faring is intense, above all a crystalline sound, even in the upper register or in the very rapid scales and trills. But what struck us most is her excellent ability to vary dynamics with mature knowledge, colouring and returning a sound that is always rich in nuances and chiaroscuro.”

“Leia is fourteen (…) I have never heard a violin give such rich, luscious low notes. (…) I repeat, Leia is only fourteen. Yet she misses not one iota of the strained passion of the [Tchaikovsky Violin] concerto. I am obliged to entertain the concept of reincarnation. Or something like that. Other violinists we have heard make the demanding cadenza sound difficult. It undoubtedly is. However, in Leia’s performance the difficult is made to sound easy. Who was it who said that a virtuoso is one who makes the difficult sound easy? The girl is startlingly at home in this.”

“At the age of 13, mature like a veteran and yet when you look at this young lady (…) your eyes could not believe what your ears hear. Leia’s presentation and performance are astounding not simply because she is ​“young”, but because it is convincing.”