Life's Rich Tapestry

EP 13 - The Dulcet Tones of Aurora Li

• Evelyn

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Growing up in the stunning world heritage listed Blue Mountains, West of Sydney, my next guest, Aurora Li has been making music for as long as she can remember. Beginning with classical piano at the age of four, her passion has broadened to encompass folk, rock and indie/pop, and sometimes a little bit of country. Accompanying herself on guitar and piano, Aurora has performed professionally since the age of 14 at live music venues and events in the Mountains and beyond, including the home-grown Winter Magic Festival, the Illawarra Folk Festival, and Bello Winter Music, where she won the hotly-contested Youth Mentorship in the vocal category. In the heady pre-pandemic days, Aurora also performed regularly with vocal trio, Breathing Underwater, who were featured artists at the Sydney Opera House for Pulse 2019. 

Bushfires, floods, and ultimately COVID took their toll on Aurora’s musical aspirations and robbed her of advance bookings, including several major folk and blues festivals. Virtual gigs filled in a few gaps including performing as one half of sister act, The River Li, for the Blue Mountains Gallery Gigs series. For the most part, though, Aurora has busied herself during lockdown with completing her HSC, writing new material, launching into a Bachelor of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium, and preparing for her AMusA in classical piano.


Although born and raised in Australia, Aurora also embraces her Chinese heritage on her father’s side. She won Best Performance of a Folk song from Another Tradition at the 2021 Illawarra Folk Festival (Fresh Folk) with her ethereal rendition of the Kangding Love Song sung in Mandarin. Taking inspiration from a 2019 meandering boat journey up the Yangtze River, Aurora wrote the hauntingly beautiful ‘Emerald Gorge’, which takes its name from the emerald green waters and sheer, rocky cliffs of the furthest gorge of the Daning River. Her composition has been described by renowned Soviet-born, Australian composer, Elena Kats-Chernin as  ‘astounding’ and ‘just extraordinary’, and her voice as ‘pure’ and ‘without ego’. 


Still only 18, Aurora’s fresh and optimistic take on life can find a song in every joy and every heartache. Her spare, indie folk/pop sound is complimented by sharply observed lyrics that traverse her experiences of friendship, loss, regret, and redemption. Like her musical idols, Phoebe Bridgers, Lorde, and Taylor Swift, Aurora is a poet and the story itself is as important as the way it's told. 


She aspires to set to music universal feelings and experiences in a way that brings unconscious or unarticulated thoughts into sharp relief. With a voice that gently takes you along for the ride, you will be enchanted and you will be mesmerized.