Once upon a time, there was a bridge…
That’s the title of one of the 18 original – and disarmingly gentle and accessible – pop songs on a new album, Bridge Emotion, soon to be released on Spotify by South Surrey-based singer/pianist/composer and arranger Bosskiu, also known as Semiahmoo Secondary student Vivian Li.
It’s a significant title, the 17-year-old performer explained during a recent interview at the White Rock studio of her classical and jazz piano and theory teacher Bryon Tosoff.
“My Chinese name is Yiqiao, which means ‘bridge’,” she said. “And Bosskiu also means ‘bridge’ in Cantonese. For me, it’s a signature thing – something that other people will remember.”
If that sounds like the unassuming – but quietly confident –Li already has a good grasp of marketing and image, it’s not accidental.
She has already produced an earlier album, Lighting, and has a wide range of creative promotional videos for her emotional, often melancholic compositions – featuring both Chinese and English lyrics – on her Bosskiu channel on YouTube, most of which she shot and edited herself.
In her music, she fuses a lot of the influences she has received at this point, ranging from Chinese pop by artists like J. Cho, to the music of Korean boy band ONF to Western classical and jazz and pop – she demonstrates in an impromptu medley that she is equally familiar with George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue and songs by The Beatles.
But she said she is resistant to being ‘typed’ as a composer or performer, or entering idioms that might pressure her into copying other performers.
“Classical composition and theory is important, but I like to figure out things for myself,” she said.
“My music is really my own style.”
Her songs are entirely self-produced, using her own vocals and keyboard and her own background arrangements with which she can achieve a surprisingly sophisticated sound using only basic Garage Band apps.
The other surprising thing is that the flowering of her musical talent has been a relatively recent development.
“I was nine years old when I first started learning piano,” she said.
“I started writing music when I was 13. When I first started to write music, I didn’t know how to put tracks together. When I realized I could put together tracks in Garage Band learned the ability to compose and put together a complete song when I was 15.”
“She has the three ‘D’s – determination, drive and desire,” Tosoff noted, adding that he counts Li as one of the top students he has worked with and that she is currently also working toward her Grade 10 Royal Conservatory of Music finals.
This is in addition to working with the Semiahmoo Grade 12 jazz band and concert band – for whom she plays trombone and piano – and her enthusiasm for hip-hop style dance as a solo performer and also choreographer of group numbers, another talent she said she hopes to incorporate in her budding musical career.
“When I like a song very much, I can express it through dance. It’s my way of sharing how much I like it,” she said.
A consistent high-achiever, she’s also maintained a 98 per cent average in her high school classes – one of the highest in the school – which made her a shoo-in for acceptance at a number of Canadian post-secondary institutions, although she has elected to go to UBC in the fall.
Although she’ll be a business major there, she acknowledged it’s a fair bet that she’ll use some of those skills in continuing to develop and market her music in future.
“I think I would like to start my own music company – I’d like to be on my own, so I don’t get controlled by other people,” she said.
Born in the small city of Foshan in Guangdong province – near Hong Kong – Li came to Canada at age 10 with her parents (her sole sibling, Charlotte, seven, was born after they emigrated).
The family moved to Saskatchewan first and Li remembers transferring to six separate elementary schools before they finally settled in South Surrey.
“I like the environment here, more than in Saskatchewan,” she said.
And while she is confident that she will do well in post-secondary academics, she’ll likely continue to be involved in music by joining performing clubs at UBC.
“Music energizes me –I like to listen to songs,” she said.
“I like to do deep self-reflection and think about life. A lot of my songs come out of that.”
At a young age she has learned she can also rely on her own determination and discipline to get her where she wants to go in life, she acknowledged.
“If I need to do something I know I will do it,” she said.
For examples of Bosskiu/Li’s music, visit www.youtube.com/@bosskiu or https://open.spotify.com/artist/2k4FdmjZzHivI1Uzz2aix3
alex.browne@peacearchnews.com
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