Pianist Yuja Wang Named Gramophone Magazine’s 2009 Young Artist of the Year

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October 2, 2009 – Gramophone magazine today announced that twenty-two year old pianist Yuja Wang has been 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 visit http://www.gramophone.co.uk/.

Yuja Wang is an exclusive artist for Deutsche Grammophon. Her debut album, Sonatas & Etudes, released in the spring of 2009 “suggests a combination of blazing technique and a rare instinct for poetry.” [Gramophone] The recording includes works by Chopin, Ligeti, Scriabin and Liszt. Yuja will make her Carnegie Hall orchestral debut performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit on Tuesday, October 13 at 8:00 p.m.

Recognized for playing that combines the spontaneity and fearless imagination of youth with the discipline and precision of a mature artist, Yuja is noted for her authority over the most complex technical demands of the repertoire, the depth of her musical insight, as well as her fresh interpretations and graceful, charismatic stage presence. She has been praised for her controlled, prodigious technique and her command of the piano has been described as “astounding” and “superhuman.”

In the few short years since her 2005 debut with the National Arts Center Orchestra led by Pinchas Zukerman, for which the Canadian press reported “a star is born,” Yuja has already performed with many of the world’s prestigious orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, New World Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, in the U.S., and abroad with the Tonhalle Orchestra, China Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, the NHK Symphony in Tokyo and Orchestra Mozart, among others. In 2006 she made her New York Philharmonic debut at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival and performed with the orchestra the following season under Lorin Maazel during the Philharmonic’s Japan/Korea visit. That same season she performed in Leeds, U.K., and toured the Netherlands with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic led by Yuri Temirkanov. In 2008 Yuja toured the United States with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields led by Sir Neville Marriner and in 2009 she performed as a soloist with the You Tube Symphony Orchestra led by Michael Tilson Thomas at Carnegie Hall. This past summer Yuja opened the Lucerne Festival performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 conducted by Claudio Abbado. She has given recitals in major cities throughout North America and abroad, is a dedicated performer of chamber music, and makes regular appearances at festivals including the Aspen Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Gilmore Festival, the Schleswig Holstein Festival and the Verbier Festival.

Yuja’s 2009-10 North American season includes four performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Charles Dutoit at the Kimmel Center prior to her Carnegie Hall debut. This season she will also make her Kimmel Center recital debut, appear as soloist with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Russian National Orchestra during their U.S. tours, and perform with the Indianapolis Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, and the New World Symphony. She will also perform the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s piano concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra led by Andrew Litton and give recitals in San Francisco , Vancouver , Detroit , and Washington DC , among other cities.

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