Fei-Ping Hsu, 51; Chinese-Born American Pianist

Fei-Ping Hsu, 51, a Chinese-born American concert pianist, was killed in a Nov. 27 car crash in northeastern China.

Hsu, who was on a concert tour, was riding in a van that hit a parked tractor outside the city of Qiqihar, said a U.S. Consulate official in the nearby city of Shenyang.

Born on Gulangyu, a tiny island off China’s southeastern coast, Hsu was a child prodigy who won a gold medal at the 1983 Arthur Rubinstein International Competition.

He started playing the piano when he was 5. He attended the primary and middle schools of the Shanghai Conservatory, China’s top music school, before joining the China Symphony at age 20.

His training was interrupted when radicals shut down the conservatory during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Hsu was sent to the countryside to work on a rice farm and in a factory.

Hsu left China in 1979 for the United States to attend Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. He later became a U.S. citizen and lived in New York City.