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Yuja Wang’s new recording, ‘Transformation,’ selected as Gramophone’s Recording of the Month

By admin | June 24, 2010

Gramophone
July 2010

By Bryce Morrison

Time was when many celebrated pianists quailed before certain works. Myra Hess sat bemused in front of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, not daring to play it in public. Until Horowitz took it so formidable in hand the Liszt Sonata was considered unplayable, while Carla Schumann considered Brahms’s Paganini Variations “witch variations” filled with cruel and unspeakable demands. Not so today’s generation; and as on her previous DG album (which understandably helped her to win the Gramophone Young Artists of the Year Award in 2009) Yuja Wand makes light even of the fiercest complexity. In Stravinsky’s Petrushka her youthful verve and jagged accentuation colour every bar of the “Danse russe”, and how she relishes the puppet’s quizzical mood-wings from gaiety to desperation in “Chez Pétrouchka”! Here and most of all in “La semaine grasse” she has a dazzling way of lightening even the heaviest textures so that her entire performance gleams with an astonishing brilliance and verve. This is even truer of her Brahms Paganini Variations, making the recording of both books a marginal rather than serious consideration. Try Var 11 from Book 2 or the Variation coda (No 14) to Book 1 and then hear her in Var 12 from Book 2 and you will find her as musically beguiling as she is breathtakingly fleet. In Ravel’s La valse her dynamics range from the merest whisper to an elemental uproar (try the final cataclysmic pages) and as if this was not enough she give us an oasis of calm in two Scarlatti sonatas. For her, the second (K466 in F minor/C major) is like “air after rain” and it would be hard to imagine playing of amore delicate emotional fervour. This entire recital leaves you in no doubt that at 23 Yuja Wang is already among the most brilliantly gifted of today’s pianists.

Yuja Wang Receives 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant

By admin | April 29, 2010

April 28, 2010

The Avery Fisher Artist Program announced that Yuja Wang is a recipient of a 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The Avery Fisher Artist Program, established by the late Avery Fisher as part of a major gift to Lincoln Center in 1974, serves as a monument to Mr. Fisher’s philanthropy and love of music, with the Career Grants in particular exemplifying his devotion to helping young artists. Since the first Career Grants were given in 1976, 118 have been awarded (including this year’s grants), and all recipients are currently working musicians. Identified early in their careers, among former Career Grant recipients are Carter Brey, James Ehnes, Leila Josefowicz, Jeffrey Kahane, and Edgar Meyer.

The Career Grants were announced at Lincoln Center’s Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on April 28, 2010. This year’s announcement, made by the Program’s Chairman Nathan Leventhal, along with Charles Avery Fisher and Nancy Fisher (children of the late Avery Fisher), and performances by three of the four recipients were taped for broadcast by Classical 105.9 WQXR ~ FM, with host Robert Sherman, to be aired on Wednesday, May 12 from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. The fourth recipient, Kirill Gerstein, was unable to participate due to his performance schedule. The 2010 awards mark the 31st time WQXR has broadcast these festivities, having been a broadcast partner since the first Career Grants were awarded in 1976. This year, WNET SundayArts will also be featuring the 2010 recipients.

Additional information about the Program, including the Avery Fisher Prize and Career Grants, is available online at www.averyfisherartistprogram.org.

Yuja’s second recital album – Transformation – to be released April 13

By admin | March 22, 2010

Yuja’s second solo recital recording, Transformation, will be released by Deutsche Grammophon on Tuesday, April 13, 2010. The album comprises three movements from Pétrouchka by Stravinsky; Scarlatti’s Sonata in E major K. 380, Andante comodo and Sonata in F minor/C major K. 466, Andante moderato; Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini op. 35, Books I & II; and Maurice Ravel’s La Valse.  The album follows Yuja’s critically acclaimed debut recording, Sonatas & Etudes, which was nominated for a Grammy® Award in the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra) category and named Best Debut Album of 2009 by International Piano magazine.

For her second recital album Yuja chose a program of piano transcriptions of works written for either a different instrument or for symphony orchestra. This idea of taking a work and re-working it for the piano fits with Yuja’s musical ideals: “For me, conveying the music through the piano is more important than the instrument itself. The music is what interests and intrigues me.”

The concept of the album is further explained in the recording’s liner notes by Michael Church: “Yuja Wang’s title for her recording reflects the Buddhist idea that life consists of constant change, and she finds its musical rationale in Brahms transforming his theme 27 times, Ravel transforming the waltz by testing it to destruction, and Stravinsky’s puppet Petrushka being temporarily transformed into a human being before finally reverting to puppethood.”

Transformation opens with Stravinsky’s own adaptation of three movements from his ballet, Pétrouchka.  Rather than simply transcribe the orchestral version, Stravinsky sought to compose purely pianistic music.  The finished score, some of the most difficult in the solo piano repertoire, was written for Arthur Rubinstein and gives the pianist ample opportunities to showcase technical virtuosity.  Ravel also transcribed his own orchestral work La Valse for solo piano, but without the overt purpose of providing a technical showpiece.  His re-interpretation of the Viennese waltz for piano is a work of immense instrumental color and ambience. The Brahms Variations on a Theme of Paganini is a similarly technically difficult, but emotionally rich, score allowing the pianist to demonstrate many aspects of playing. The work presents a simple theme (that of Paganini’s famous Caprice No. 24 in A minor for solo violin) and then proceeds to present variations of that theme, varying in difficultly and character. Yuja follows the sequence of variations by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, a pianist she greatly admires. Between the larger dramatic works, Yuja presents two Scarlatti one-movement sonatas. Though not without technical challenges, these works are two of the Scarlatti’s most sweetly expressive sonatas.

Yuja Receives Grammy® Award Nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance For Her Recording of Sonatas & Etudes

By admin | December 3, 2009

Yuja has been nominated for a Grammy® Award in the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra) category for her debut recording Sonatas & Etudes. The album, released by Deutsche Grammophon in April 2009,  has been praised as an “extraordinary debut recording” by The New York Times, which added “Ms. Wang offers technically stunning, interpretively compelling accounts of Chopin’s “Funeral March” Sonata and Liszt’s B minor Sonata along with dazzling high-energy performances of Scriabin’s Sonata No. 2 and a pair of Ligeti études.” Gramophone magazine, which named Yuja the Classic FM Gramophone Awards 2009 Young Artist of the Year, also wrote that Yuja’s performance on the recording “suggests a combination of blazing technique and a rare instinct for poetry.” Sonatas & Etudes was also named Best Debut Album of 2009 by International Piano magazine.

For more information about this and other Grammy nominations click here.

“Sonatas & Etudes” Wins International Piano Award for Best Debut Album of 2009

By admin | November 23, 2009

International Piano magazine has announced that Yuja Wang’s recording Sonatas & Etudes has been selected as the International Piano Awards Best Debut Album of 2009.

International Piano is a British bi-monthly journal. Now in its fourth year, the 2009 International Piano Awards celebrate the best piano recordings, sheet music, books and DVDs released between October 2008 and November 2009.  The complete list of winners will be published in the November/December 2009 issue of International Piano and can be found online at http://www.rhinegold.co.uk and www.international-piano.com.

Yuja Wang Named Gramophone Magazine’s Young Artist of the Year

By admin | October 5, 2009

On Friday, October 2, 2009 Gramophone magazine announced that Yuja Wang was named the Classic FM Gramophone Awards 2009 Young Artist of the Year.  The Gramophone Awards are widely regarded as the most important and influential classical music awards.  The awards were announced earlier today in London at a ceremony hosted by Gramophone magazine’s Editor-in-chief James Jolly, Editor James Inverne and British soprano Elizabeth Watts.

For a complete list of award winners click here.

Yuja Wang Makes Her Carnegie Hall Orchestral Debut Tuesday, October 13 at 8:00 p.m.

By admin | October 5, 2009

Yuja Wang will make her Carnegie Hall orchestral debut as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in the Stern Auditorium Tuesday, October 13 at 8:00 p.m.   Led by Charles Dutoit, Chief Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the program will also include Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Berlioz’s Symphony fantastique.  This concert will mark Yuja’s only New York appearance this season.

Yuja Wang first performed under Charles Dutoit in 2007 with the NHK Symphony in Japan while still a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Since then, Yuja and Mr. Dutoit have partnered throughout the world for performances with such orchestras as the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. Following their recent performances together with the National Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic (Prokofiev’s Piano concerto No. 2) Anne Midgette of The Washington Post wrote, “[Yuja] can create colors aplenty on her instrument: singing limpid strokes, or a haze like water droplets about to yield a rainbow” and Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times wrote “Wang and Dutoit were exciting…this was a brilliant, incisive reading from orchestra and soloist.”

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

Yuja Wang, piano
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Charles Dutoit, conductor

BARBER     Adagio for Strings
PROKOFIEV     Piano Concerto No. 2
BERLIOZ     Symphonie Fantastique

Single tickets priced from $37 to $115 can be purchased through Carnegiecharge at 212-247-7800 or online at www.carnegiehall.org.

Debut Recording Sonatas & Etudes To Be Released by Deutsche Grammophon April 7

By admin | March 25, 2009

The highly anticipated recording debut of 22-year-old pianist Yuja Wang will be released on Tuesday, April 7, 2009 by Deutsche Grammophon, for whom Yuja is now an exclusive artist. The recording will also be released as a digital download available exclusively from iTunes on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. The CD, titled Sonatas & Etudes, comprises Chopin’s Piano Sonata no. 2 in B flat minor Op. 35 “Funeral March,” Scriabin’s Piano Sonata no. 2 in G sharp minor Op. 19, Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor S 178, and Ligeti’s Etude 4 “Fanfares” and Etude 10 “The Sorcerers Apprentice.”

Deutsche Grammophon Signs Exclusive Recording Agreement With Yuja Wang

By admin | March 25, 2009

January 6, 2009 — Deutsche Grammophon is pleased to announce the signing of an exclusive agreement with pianist Yuja Wang.  Yuja has already won widespread critical praise for her authority over the most complex technical demands of the keyboard repertoire, the depth of her musical insight, as well as her fresh interpretations and graceful, charismatic stage presence. This past season the Washington Post called her Kennedy Center recital debut “jaw-dropping” and following her San Francisco recital debut the San Francisco Chronicle added: “To listen to her in action is to re-examine whatever assumptions you may have had about how well the piano can actually be played.” 

For Yuja Wang’s debut recording, titled Sonatas & Etudes, to be released in the Spring in the U.S., she presents a technically challenging, musically integrated programme of sonatas by Chopin (“Funeral March”), Liszt (in B minor), and Scriabin (no. 2) — plus two Etudes by Ligeti.

Michael Lang, President of Deutsche Grammophon, said “After first hearing Yuja Wang in recitals — and then meeting this remarkable woman and learning that she is not only a fine artist but also will be a terrific spokesperson for the next generation of classical musicians, it was obvious that Deutsche Grammophon and Yuja would be a perfect match. And we are so pleased to welcome her into our family of artists.”

On signing the contract Yuja Wang remarked “I’m thrilled to be recording my debut album with Deutsche Grammophon and to be joining their roster of exclusive artists. I have always considered Deutsche Grammophon to be the most prestigious classical music record company, and it is not only an honor but my pleasure to record for them.”