After many years of reading about music, you may think you've heard all the amazing prodigy stories — but Yundi Li's story still boggles the mind. Back in his birthplace (Chongqing, Seattle's sister city, located in central China), when he was 3 years old, Li was so fascinated by a man playing an accordion in a shopping mall that he refused to leave the mall. His parents, not surprisingly, decided he needed an accordion of his own, and by age 4, Li had mastered it.

When he was 7, he asked his parents for piano lessons, and within five years he was good enough to win top honors in an audition for the top music school in Sichuan province. By the time Li was 18, in 2000, he was already the winner of several international competitions; that year, he placed first at the prestigious International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. He didn't just win first prize at the Chopin Competition, but also became the first pianist in 15 years to do so (the competition, whose judges are famously picky, won't award a first prize unless they are deeply impressed). That win propelled him to a Deutsche Grammophon recording contract, a concert career, and this Wednesday's sold-out President's Piano Series recital at 8 p.m. in Meany Theater.

It's safe to say that Li is one of today's hottest young pianists. Of his 2004 Liszt recording, critic Harris Goldsmith (Musical America) wrote that Li played "perhaps the finest account of the B-minor Sonata I have ever heard ... exquisite artistry from one of the greatest talents to surface in years — nay, decades."

Li isn't just a promising young keyboard artist. He's also among the vanguard of a new generation of brilliant Chinese pianists who have burst upon the international scene — first with the explosive talent of Lang Lang, and now with the largest contingent of any country to make the cut for the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (to be held this May). Eight of the 35 participants are Chinese, and seven of those eight are women. The Cliburn Foundation's president, Richard Rodzinski, has called this new wave "just the beginning of a reflection of the huge interest in Western art music in China," and he expects the Chinese presence in classical music to continue to grow in years ahead.

Li certainly agrees.

"In my generation there are so many young players who started the piano, so much talent!" he said in a recent phone interview. "Right now, China is a very grown-up country [that] loves classical music and is very serious about music education. There is more and more interest all the time."

Is some of this interest a rebound from the era of the Cultural Revolution (circa 1966-1976), when Western music was more or less banned?

"It is lucky for our generation that we grew up when we did," says Li.

"My father and my piano teacher were not allowed to make music during the Cultural Revolution. There was no connection with the West, no chance to have a playing career. For my own generation ... everything is possible."

Li predicts there will be "many more Chinese pianists" on concert stages in the near future because of a great groundswell of love for that instrument in his country.

Comparisons are inevitable with the more famous pianist Lang Lang, also born in 1982 in China, but it is very clear that the two artists are different. Li's laid-back personality, both on the phone and at the keyboard, is miles away from the untamed ebullience of Lang Lang, whose very demonstrative and physical performances have won over international audiences.

Li loves his audiences too, but he expresses himself in different ways.

"On the stage is your time ... ," he explains. "You do what you want, because you love music and this is the way you like to play it. It's not just to please the audience; the performance is your own idea."

Even though Li is a veteran of many international competitions, from Beijing and the Netherlands to the United States, he says he didn't feel much pressure.

"I was quite lucky. I never think I should win the first prize. That was not in my plan. Each year I went to a different competition to try it, but also to hear the other players. I love to hear other artists. You can learn so much from them. I did not think I would win the first prize or have a career, but it just happened, almost like [it was] automatic."

Reviewers praise the intelligence and artistry of his playing. A Boston reviewer called him "spectacularly gifted," and England's Gramophone magazine said of his new Chopin disc of the four Scherzi and three Impromptus, "Stunning playing. ... Powerful, punctilious and heroic." To sample Li's playing, visit his corner of the label's Web site www.deutschegrammophon.com/artistmicrosite/?ART_ID=LIYUN, and prepare to enjoy. (A button at the top right of the screen shows which track is playing and allows you to move among the tracks.)

The Meany Theater program doesn't have any Chopin, but it opens with a work Li will record later this year: Mozart's Sonata No. 10 in C Major (K.330), followed by Schumann's beloved suite, "Carnaval." The finale is the centerpiece of Li's 2003 album, Liszt's mighty Sonata in B Minor.

His Wednesday recital will be followed by a reception hosted by the Seattle-Chongqing Sister City Association and the Seattle Chinese Garden Society.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com