Ruirui Ouyang Johnson, a native of Tianjin, China, received her undergraduate degree in piano performance at the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, under the supervision of Alexey Sokolov and Svetlana Sokolova. For several years thereafter, she taught piano in Tianjin.

In 2008, Ruirui came to the United States to study at Oklahoma City University, receiving her MM with honors in Piano Performance in 2011 under the supervision of Dr. Sergio Monteiro. After serving as a piano teacher in Macau, China for three years, she returned to the United States for doctoral studies, originally with Dr. Kevin Chance at the University of Alabama, and since the fall of 2015 with Drs. Jeongwon Ham and Edward Gates at the University of Oklahoma. Ruirui has now completed all academic, recital and comprehensive examination requirements for her DMA degree in piano performance at OU. She is currently working on her dissertation to complete her doctoral studies.

Since returning to the United States in 2014, Ruirui has won six competitions for piano concerto performances, a two-piano performance and solo piano performances, including the prestigious Donna Turner Smith Memorial Piano Competition at OU. She has performed piano concertos of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff with the symphony orchestras of the University of Alabama and the University of Oklahoma; solo performances in Germany at the Klavierfestival Lindlar, near Cologne; chamber music appearances with the Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble in Oklahoma City; and as a co-piano accompanist for Canterbury Voices’ 2021 performance of Johannes Brahms’ “German Requiem” at the OKC Civic Center Music Hall, under the baton of Dr. Randi Von Ellefson of Oklahoma City University.

Ruirui’s piano teaching skills were recognized in 2014 by the Hong Kong International Piano Open Competition, which awarded her the Liszt Memorial Prize for Excellence in Teaching. In 2017 she joined the piano faculty of the Oklahoma Conservatory of Music, where she serves as the senior piano faculty member. In 2021 she served as an adjunct piano faculty member at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford. Her Oklahoma City piano students have begun to garner victories in competitions sponsored by the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association, as well as other regional and international organizations. In October 2022 two of her students were winners in a virtual piano competition, which featured them in public performances in the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall in New York City in June 2023.

Ruirui has served as an opera, vocal and instrumental accompanist in the United States and China; a piano competition judge in both countries; and a church pianist and organist in Oklahoma. In May 2021, she proudly became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America.