Yuja Wang

Yuja Wang (Chinese: 王羽佳; pinyin: Wáng Yǔjiā;[1] born February 10, 1987)[2] is a Chinese classical pianist. She was born in Beijing, began studying piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.[3] By the age of 21, she was already an internationally recognized concert pianist, giving recitals around the world.[4] She has a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, she said: "For me, playing music is about transporting to another way of life, another way of being. An actress does that."[5] Yuja Wang lives in New York City.[6]

The native form of this personal name is Wang Yuja. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
In this Chinese name, the family name is Wang.
Yuja Wang
王羽佳
Yuja Wang, 2012, Stadtcasino Basel, Switzerland
Background information
Born (1987-02-10) February 10, 1987
Beijing
Occupation(s)Classical pianist
LabelsDeutsche Grammophon
Websiteyujawang.com

Early life

Wang comes from an artistic family. Her mother, Zhai Jieming, is a dancer and her father, Wang Jianguo, is a percussionist. Both live in Beijing.[7]

Wang began studying piano at age six.[3] At age seven, she began seven years' study at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music. At 11, Wang entered the Morningside Music Bridge International Music Festival (at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta) as the festival's youngest student.[8]

At age 15, Wang entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied for five years with Gary Graffman and graduated in 2008. Graffman said that Wang's technique impressed him during her audition, but "it was the intelligence and good taste" of her interpretations that distinguished her.[7]

Career

Early career

In 1998, Wang won third prize in the Ettlingen International Competition for Young Pianists in Ettlingen, Germany.[9] In 2001, she won third prize and the special jury prize (awarded to an especially superior finalist of less than 20 years in age, prize money of 500,000 Japanese Yen) in the piano section at the first Sendai International Music Competition in Sendai, Japan.[10]

In 2002, Wang won the Aspen Music Festival's concerto competition.[11]

In 2003, Wang made her European debut with the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Switzerland, playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 under the baton of David Zinman. She made her North American debut in Ottawa in the 2005/06 season, replacing Radu Lupu performing that Beethoven concerto with Pinchas Zukerman conducting.[12]

On September 11, 2005, Wang was named a 2006 biennial Gilmore Young Artist Award winner, given to the most promising pianists age 22 and younger. As part of the award, she received $15,000, appeared at Gilmore Festival concerts, and had a new piano work commissioned for her.[13]

In 2006, Wang made her New York Philharmonic debut at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival. The following season, she performed with the orchestra under Lorin Maazel during the Philharmonic's tour of Japan and Korea.[14]

In March 2007, Wang's breakthrough came when she replaced Martha Argerich in concerts held in Boston.[15][16][17] Argerich had cancelled her appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on four subscription concerts from March 8 to 13.[15] Wang performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Charles Dutoit conducting.

After 2007
Wang performing with the National Youth Orchestra of China at Carnegie Hall on July 22, 2017

In 2008, Wang toured the U.S. with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields led by Sir Neville Marriner. In 2009, she performed as a soloist with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas at Carnegie Hall. Wang performed with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado in Beijing, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Spain and in London, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.[14]

In 2009, Wang performed and recorded Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto in G Minor with Kurt Masur at the Verbier Festival, accompanied by Kirill Troussov, David Aaron Carpenter, Maxim Rysanov, Sol Gabetta and Leigh Mesh.[18] Her performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" is featured on the Verbier Festival highlights DVD from 2008. Wang's "Bumblebee" video has been viewed more than 4.5 million times on YouTube.[19]

In 2012, Wang toured with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Zubin Mehta in Israel and the U.S., with a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York in September.[20]

Wang toured Asia in November 2012 with the San Francisco Symphony and its conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.[21]

In February 2013, Wang[22] performed and recorded Prokofiev's Concerto No. 2 and Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3 with Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Venezuelan Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar.[23] Also in 2013, Wang's recital tour of Japan culminated with her recital debut at Tokyo's Suntory Hall.[24]

Wang made her Berlin Philharmonic debut in May 2015, performing Sergei Prokofiev's 2nd Piano Concerto with Conductor Paavo Järvi. The performance was broadcast live through the orchestra's Digital Concert Hall.[25]

In a departure from her previously predominantly Russian repertoire, she played Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9, the Jeunehomme, in February 2016 at David Geffen Hall in New York on four successive nights with Charles Dutoit conducting, then, in her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev in Munich and Paris.[26] In March 2016, Wang played for three nights in Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting. In a recital at Carnegie Hall in May 2016, she played Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29, the Hammerklavier, and two Brahms Ballades and Robert Schumann's Kreisleriana.[26]

Wang performed with the National Youth Orchestra of China for its Carnegie Hall premiere on July 22, 2017, with conductor Ludovic Morlot of the Seattle Symphony, performing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor.[27]

Orchestras and performances

As of 2020, Wang has performed with many orchestras, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Washington, in the U.S. Internationally, she has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, China Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orquesta Nacional de España, Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, the NHK Symphony in Tokyo, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestra Mozart and Santa Cecilia.[20]

In 2019 she paid tribute to Kennedy Center Honoree Michael Tilson Thomas with a rendition of "You Come Here Often?".[28]

Discography
Main article: Yuja Wang discography

In January 2009, Wang signed a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon.[29]

Although there are reports Wang released a debut CD in 1995,[30][31][32] there is little information available about it.

Reviews

In a review of Wang's 2011 Carnegie Hall debut, The New York Times wrote:

From the opening piece, an early Scriabin prelude, Ms. Wang played this Chopinesque music, all rippling left-hand figures and dreamy melodic lines, with a delicacy, poetic grace and attention to inner musical details that commanded respect. After intermission she offered a rhapsodic, uncommonly nuanced account of the formidable Liszt Sonata in B minor. But the most revealing performance came in Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 6 in A. Completed in 1940, this nearly 30-minute work channels some barbaric, propulsive, harmonically brittle outbursts into a formal four-movement sonata structure. In most readings, intriguing tension results from hearing music of such aggressive modernism reined in by Neo-Classical constraints. Ms. Wang reconciled these conflicting elements through a performance of impressive clarity and detail.[52]

In June 2012, Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Wang is "quite simply, the most dazzlingly, uncannily gifted pianist in the concert world today, and there's nothing left to do but sit back, listen and marvel at her artistry."[53]

From a May 2013 Carnegie Hall concert, The New York Times reported that Wang's "fortissimos were fearsome, but so, in a quieter way, were the longing melodic lines of the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Sonata No. 2." The reviewer added:

The liquidity of her phrasing in the second movement of Scriabin's Sonata No. 2 eerily evoked the sound of woodwinds. In that composer's Sonata No. 6 she juxtaposed colors granitic and gauzy to eerily brilliant effect before closing the written program with a rabid rendition of the one-piano version of "La valse", accentuating the sickliness of Ravel's distorted waltzes.[54]

In May 2016, The New York Times reviewed her performance of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata:

Ms. Wang's virtuosity goes well beyond uncanny facility. Right through this Beethoven performance she wondrously brought out intricate details, inner voices and harmonic colorings. The first movement had élan and daring. The scherzo skipped along with mischievousness and rhythmic bite. In the grave, great slow movement, she played with restraint and poignancy. She kept you on edge during the elusive transition to the gnarly, dense fugue, which she then dispatched with unfathomable dexterity. This was not a probing or profound Hammerklavier. But I admired Ms. Wang's combination of youthful energy and musical integrity.[55]

External image
Wang at the Hollywood Bowl, 2011

Wang has received attention for her eye-catching outfits and glamorous stage presence as well as for her piano playing. In a much-quoted 2011 review of a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles Times classical music critic Mark Swed wrote:

But it was Yuja Wang's orange dress for which Tuesday night is likely to be remembered… Her dress Tuesday was so short and tight that had there been any less of it, the Bowl might have been forced to restrict admission to any music lover under 18 not accompanied by an adult. Had her heels been any higher, walking, to say nothing of her sensitive pedaling, would have been unfeasible.[56]

Swed was criticised for this aspect of his review in a Washington Post article titled "Which offends? Her short dress or critic's narrow view?".[57]

In 2017, Michael Levin of the HuffPost described Wang after her concert with Leonidas Kavakos at David Geffen Hall as "one of the most talented, enthralling, and even mesmerizing performers on the world scene".[58]

Awards

See also

References
  1. "Piano". Yuja Wang. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
  2. Kosman, Joshua (December 28, 2008). "Best classical music of 2008". San Francisco Chronicle.
  3. Jepson, Barbara (October 18, 2011). "The Fast and the Serious". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  4. Cummings, Robert. Yuja Wang – Biography at AllMusic. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  5. Vankin, Deborah (May 26, 2017). "Piano virtuoso Yuja Wang could have gone anywhere for this interview. She chose ... Universal Studios?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 27, 2017.
  6. Krista Soriano and Leah Melby Clinton, "For Yuja Wang, You're only as Good as Your Next Performance", Elle, November 20, 2017; Janet Malcolm, "Yuja Wang and the Art of Performance", The New Yorker, September 5, 2016
  7. Schweitzer, Vivien (April 6, 2012). "Talented, Eye-Catching, Unapologetic". The New York Times. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  8. Wang, Yuja (June 9, 2010). Concert Pianist Yuja Wang Talks About the Mount Royal Conservatory. Retrieved April 22, 2016.
  9. Prizewinners 1998, Ettlingen International Competition for Young Pianists
  10. "1st SIMC Piano Section May 26 – June 9, 2001". Sendai International Music Competition for Violin & Piano. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved December 4, 2012.
  11. "Young Artist of the Year Award – Yuja Wang". Gramophone. Archived from the original on October 28, 2009. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  12. About Yuja Wang, Deutsche Grammophon
  13. "Gilmore Young Artist Award". The Gilmore. Retrieved December 4, 2012.
  14. "Yuja Wang – About". YujaWang.com. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  15. "News: Martha Argerich Cancels This Week's Appearances with Boston Symphony". PlaybillArts. March 5, 2007. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
  16. "Argerich Cancels On BSO". The Boston Globe. March 5, 2007. Retrieved August 5, 2017.
  17. Cheadle, James. "Taking Flight" (PDF). BBC Music. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  18. "Mendelssohn in Verbier". EuroArts. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  19. Yuja Wang plays "Flight of the Bumble-Bee" on YouTube
  20. "Yuja Wang, pianist". Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  21. "Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Perform Six-City, 10-Concert Asian Tour in November" (PDF). San Francisco Symphony. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  22. Jean-Pierre Thiollet, 88 notes pour piano solo, "Solo nec plus ultra", Neva Editions, 2015, p.51. ISBN 978 2 3505 5192 0.
  23. "Yuja Wang grabo con Deutsche Grammophon en Caracas". Venezuela Sinfonica. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  24. "Yuja Wang". Carnegie Hall. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  25. "Yuja Wang debuts with the Berliner Philharmoniker". Berliner Philharmoniker. Retrieved May 16, 2015.
  26. "Yuja Wang and the Art of Performance" by Janet Malcolm, The New Yorker, September 5, 2016
  27. Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna Da (July 12, 2017). "National Youth Orchestras Bring Friendly Competition to New York". The New York Times. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  28. "Kennedy Center Honors 2019 – Performers, Songs, & Honorees Revealed!" (PDF). Just Jared. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  29. "Deutsche Grammophon signs pianist Yuja Wang", 12 January 2009, musolife.com Archived January 30, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  30. "Rising star Yuja Wang steps in for pianist Radu Lupu who has been obliged to cancel his Feb. 8–9 NAC Orchestra concerts with Pinchas Zukerman for medical reasons". Canada's National Arts Centre. January 19, 2005. Retrieved July 30, 2010. She released her debut CD in 1995...
  31. "China Philharmonic with Yuja Wang". Strathmore. Retrieved July 30, 2010. Yuja Wang's debut CD was released in 1995.
  32. "The young Chinese pianist talks with Patrick P.L. Lam". Musicweb International. Retrieved November 3, 2009. Wang released her very début CD in 1995.
  33. "Yuja Wang Sonatas & Etudes". Deutsche Grammophon.
  34. "Mendelssohn in Verbier 2009 - Kurt Masur". Warner Music Medienservice.
  35. "Lucerne Festival 2009 (Mahler: Symphony 1 / Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3)". EuroArts.
  36. "Yuja Wang Transformation". Deutsche Grammophon.
  37. "Verbier Festival 2010: Yuja Wang Piano". EuroArts.
  38. "Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 / Wang, Abbado". Deutsche Grammophon.
  39. "Verbier 2011: Yuri Temirkanov conducts Liadov, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky". EuroArts.
  40. "Yuja Wang Fantasia". Deutsche Grammophon.
  41. "Rachman. & Prokofiev Concertos / Y. Wang". Deutsche Grammophon.
  42. "Brahms Violin Sonatas / Leonidas Kavakos, Yuja Wang". Decca.
  43. "Ravel Complete Orchestral Works". Deutsche Grammophon.
  44. "The Asia Tour Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle, Seong-Jin Cho, Yuja Wang". Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings.
  45. "The Berlin Recital Yuja Wang". Deutsche Grammophon.
  46. "The Peace Concert Versailles". Presto Classical.
  47. "Ottensamer Blue Hour". Deutsche Grammophon.
  48. "Summer Night Concert 2019". Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
  49. "Franck, Chopin Gautier Capuçon". Warner Classics.
  50. "ADAMS Must The Devil Have All The Good Tunes?". Deutsche Grammophon.
  51. "Rachmaninov Cello Sonata, Op. 19 / Verbier Festival". Deutsche Grammophon.
  52. Tommasini, Anthony (October 21, 2011). "Flaunting Virtuosity (and More)". The New York Times. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  53. Kosman, Joshua (June 19, 2012). "S.F. Symphony review: Wang's awesome Rachmaninoff". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  54. Woolfe, Zachary (May 17, 2013). "Restrained, Then Madly Lyrical: The Pianist as Spring Mechanism". The New York Times. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  55. Tommasini, Anthony (May 15, 2016). "Yuja Wang Tackles Beethoven's Hammerklavier, Assured to a Fault". The New York Times. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  56. Review by Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 3 August 2011
  57. "Which offends? Her short dress or critic's narrow view?" by Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, August 12, 2011
  58. Levin, Michael (February 10, 2017). "No Shortcuts For Yuja Wang, The World's Greatest Living Pianist". HuffPost. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  59. "Yuja Wang Artist www.grammy.com". Recording Academy.
  60. "Avery Fisher Career Grants". Lincoln Center. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  61. "Avery Fisher Career Grant Winner: Yuja Wang". thirteen.org. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  62. "Echo Klassik-Sonderpreise für Nachwuchsförderung". Musik Heute. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  63. "MusicalAmerica – Artist of the Year 2017: Yuja Wang". www.musicalamerica.com. Retrieved July 17, 2017.
  64. "Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2019: the winners revealed!". gramophone.co.uk. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
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