Artist to Watch: Joyce Yang plays L.A. with busy summer ahead

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Pianist Joyce Yang made headlines in 2005 as the youngest silver medalist in the history of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The 19-year-old also swept two additional awards, for best performance of a chamber work and best performance of a new work. Now 23, Yang says she's "having a ball" performing Beethoven, Bernstein, the big Romantics, and more as she "continues to dazzle audiences with her clarity and breadth of style" (Duluth News Tribune, 1/15/10).

Yang returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic this week for Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with conductor Edo de Waart. Her summer includes re-engagements at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony (with James Conlon in Bernstein's Age of Anxiety) and Aspen Music Festival (Tchaikovsky with Leonard Slatkin and a recital evening), as well as her debut in July with the San Francisco Symphony under Alondra de la Parra playing "Rach Three".

"She's been a Performance Today favorite ever since her amazing interview and performance in our studios right after the 2005 Cliburn Competition," writes host Fred Child. "Joyce joined me in the studio again this past November and played highlights from Schumann's Carnaval. (And we have the Schubert Club performance of the same, complete.) Her performance was so strong, and her comments were so good, we plan to make that a centerpiece of our Schumann 200 coverage in June."

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