Described as “the most gifted young pianist of her
generation” with a “million-volt stage presence” pianist Joyce Yang captivates
audiences across the globe with her stunning virtuosity combined with heartfelt
lyricism and interpretive sensitivity. At just
26
, she has established herself as one of the leading
artists of her generation through her innovative solo recitals and notable
collaborations with the world’s top orchestras.
In 2010 she
received an Avery Fisher Career Grant, one of classical music’s most
prestigious accolades.
Yang came to international attention in 2005 when she
won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International
Piano
Competition. The youngest contestant, she took home two additional awards: the
Steven De Groote Memorial Award for Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the
Takàcs Quartet) and the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for Best Performance of a
New Work.
Since her spectacular
debut,
Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing
artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), and
she continues to appear
with orchestras around the world.
She has performed with the New
York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia
Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Houston Symphony, and
BBC Philharmonic – among many others, working with such distinguished
conductors as Edo de Waart, Lorin Maazel, James Conlon, Leonard Slatkin, David
Robertson, Bramwell Tovey and Jaap van Zweden. In recital, Yang has
taken the
stage at
New York’s Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum; the
Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Chicago’s Symphony Hall; and Zurich’s
Tonhalle.
Her 2012-2013
season features debuts with the Toronto and Detroit Symphonies, both under
Peter Oundjian; abroad, she makes her German debut with the Deutsches
Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, led by James Conlon, and travels to Australia for a
concert with the Sydney Symphony. Also this season, Yang joins de Waart and the
Milwaukee Symphony to continue her Rachmaninoff cycle with the orchestra, this
time performing the Russian master’s First Piano Concerto. In October she
returns to the Buffalo Philharmonic, after impressing audiences and critics two
seasons ago as a last-minute substitute with the orchestra. Yang devotes much
of her new season to chamber music, presenting collaborations with the
Takàcs
Quartet, the Modigliani Quartet, and
violinist Augustin Hadelich, along with recitals in Honolulu, Des Moines, San
Antonio, Cambridge (UK debut), Melbourne, and Vancouver. The season follows a busy
summer of performances at the Aspen Music Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music
Festival, and at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival – where she joined
members of the Emerson String Quartet for Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, prompting
the New York Times to praise Yang for
her “
vivid and beautiful playing
.”
Yang made her celebrated New York Philharmonic debut
with Lorin Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall in November 2006 and performed on
the
orchestra’s
tour of Asia
, making a triumphant return to
her hometown,
Seoul,
South Korea. Since then, she has
appeared with the
Philharmonic
frequently, including the opening
night of the Leonard Bernstein Festival in September 2008, at the special
request of Lorin Maazel in his final season as Music Director. The New York Times called Yang’s performance
in Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety a
“knock-out.”
In
November 2011, Yang released a solo album for Avie Records,
Collage
, featuring piano works by
Scarlatti, Liebermann, Debussy, Currier, and Schumann.
Gramophone
praised her “imaginative programming” and “beautifully
atmospheric playing.”
American Record Guide
called
Collage
“an outstanding first recording”
and a “display of her wide-ranging talent."
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Yang received her first
piano lesson at age four from her aunt. She quickly took to the instrument, which
she received as a birthday present, and over the next few years won several
national piano competitions in her native country. By age ten, she had entered
the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and subsequently she
made a number of concerto and recital appearances in Seoul and Daejeon. In
1997, Yang moved to the United States to begin studies at the pre-college
division of the Juilliard School in New York with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky. During
her first year at Juilliard, she won its pre-college division Concerto
Competition, resulting in a performance of the Haydn Concerto in D major with
the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra.
After winning the
Philadelphia Orchestra's Greenfield Competition, she performed Prokofiev’s
Piano Concerto No. 3 with that orchestra when she was just twelve.
She
graduated from Juilliard with special honor as the recipient of the school’s
2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize, and in 2011 she won the school’s 30th Annual William
A. Petschek Piano Recital Award.
Joyce Yang appears in the film
In the Heart of Music,
a documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition, and she is a frequent guest on American Public
Media’s nationally syndicated radio program
Performance
Today
. A Steinway artist, she currently resides in New York City.
© 21C Media Group; last edited October 26, 2012