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Magdalen Hsu-Li is an Asian-American music artist,
painter, poet, and speaker. A pioneering Asian-American woman in
music, Magdalen is one of the first openly out bi Chinese-American
singer-songwriters in the United States who isbecoming a star in the
acoustic/pop/folk/alternative genres. She is already an acclaimed
performer on the college, festival, folk, and club tour circuits,
and her music offers rebellion in sexy, soaring vocals and gritty,
angst-filled lyricism. One of the first Asian-American music artists
to command the alternative college playlist, Magdalen brings a
confident voice and an astute awareness of her role as catalytic
spokeswoman for America’s melting pot. She is opening new doors of
expression for Asian-Americans and people everywhere, and is poised
to become a cross-cultural pop icon. Redefining her torrid mix as a
woman at the threshold of tumultuous change in America, she exposes
the treacherous currents that underlie our national fabric, and
explores pathways through which we all meet.
Magdalen began her artistic life as a painter and visual artist.
Graduating with a BFA in Painting from the prestigious Rhode Island
School of Design in Providence, RI, she won the coveted Oxbow
Fellowship, Talbot Rantoul Scholarship and Florence Leif Scholarship
for Excellence in Painting. In 1992 she migrated to Seattle, WA and
became immersed in the legendary Seattle music scene of the early
90’s. She began her study of jazz and classical music at Cornish
College of the Arts, and was the recipient of the 1995 Cornish Music
Scholarship.
In 1997, Magdalen founded Chickpop Records. That same year she
founded Femme Vitale, The Seattle Women's Music and Arts Coalition,
a women's arts advocacy organization that won a Special Projects
Grant from the King County Arts Commission. Femme Vitale hosted
numerous educational workshops, festivals, arts exhibitions, and
performance events around Seattle, King County and the West Coast
throughout 1996-1997. Magdalen was nominated for a GLAMA (Gay and
Lesbian American Music Award) for "Best Out Song" for "Monkeygirl,”
the single from her critically acclaimed 1998 release Evolution. The
CD received airplay on hundreds of college and commercial radio
stations throughout the US. Magdalen’s music charts regularly on the
Outvoice GLBT Music Charts.
Most recently, Magdalen’s devoted national fanbase has made her
hugely popular on the grassroots, college, folk, and GLBT music
circuits. Her much anticipated new release "Fire" has received rave
reviews in Curve, The Advocate, Performing Songwriter, A Magazine,
Rockrgrl, Voice of America, Dish Magazine, Alice, Girlfriends, Yolk,
Bamboo Girl, and Women's Monthly, and in hundreds of newspapers
across the country. Recently FIRE was named one of the best top 12
DIY albums by Performing Songwriter, andwon "Best Producer" at the
2002 Outvoice Music Awards.
Magdalen’s live shows are powerful, magical, high energy events
featuring piano, guitar, vocal, and drumset duos, four piece band
arrangements, thought provoking poetry readings with elements of
comedic standup, and spiritually rousing percussion and drum
improvisations. In addition to performances, her lecture series
offers an academic side to her program, including slide
presentations of her paintings. Her talent, prowess, and skill as a
musician, singer, painter, poet, and person continue to deepen her
musical artistry with a positive, universal message about love,
multiculturalism, spirituality, relationships, and diversity. She
emerges as a new voice for an increasingly diverse multicultural
mainstream audience coming of age in the 21st Century. She is
clearly an artistic visionary in her own right, making music and art
with all her might.
Born in America's rural South to Dr. and Mrs. George Tze-Ching Li,
Magdalen was raised in one of the only Asian families in
Martinsville, VA amid a sea of seething black and white racial
animosity, patriarchal tyranny, and conservative consumerism. In her
formative years, Magdalen battled and eventually conquered a
disability called Tourette’s Syndrome. She recalls how hard it was
growing up. "There were cows, cornfields, Ku Klux Klan marches, and
preppy debutantes, and no Asians anywhere," she said. "To top it
off, I had Tourettes which immediately set me apart from others, and
I was experiencing racism and bigotry on a daily basis at school."
"I didn’t even know that I was an artist. I found solace and an
understanding of who I was by listing to Peter Gabriel’s music. It
was through music and art that I began to shape my true identity and
learn to accept myself for being different.” |
