Ni Lianchun was born on February 12, 1973, as the youngest of two children. Her father was a clarinet player, while her mother was a well-known pianist. At the age of three, she, her mother, and her older sister moved from Beijing to the San Francisco Bay Area as a result of divorce. Upon graduating high school, Shunza studied at the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in Lausanne,
Switzerland EJMA – http://www.ejma.ch. It was there that she founded a band called Duty Free, releasing a few works in Europe. In 1994, Magic Stone Music, a subsidiary of
Rock Records, received one of her demo tapes, and consequently signed her to a record contract. ==Musical career==