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Yuja Wang (; born February 10, 1987) is a Chinese-born American pianist. Born in Beijing, she began learning 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.
By age 21, she was already an internationally recognized concert pianist and signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Wang currently lives in New York.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
Wang began learning the piano at age six. At age seven, she began studies at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music. At age eleven, Wang entered the Morningside Music Bridge International Music Festival (at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta) as the festival's youngest student.
At the age of fifteen, 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.
In 2002, Wang won the concerto competition at the Aspen Music Festival.
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 with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in the 2005–2006 season, replacing Radu Lupu performing that Beethoven concerto with Pinchas Zukerman conducting. About Yuja Wang , Deutsche Grammophon
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.
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 a tour of Japan and Korea by the Philharmonic.
In March 2007, Wang's breakthrough came when she replaced Martha Argerich in concerts held in Boston. Argerich had cancelled her appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on four subscription concerts from March 8 to 13. Wang performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Charles Dutoit conducting.
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. Her performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" is featured on the Verbier Festival highlights DVD from 2008.
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.
Wang toured Asia in November 2012 with the San Francisco Symphony and its conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
In February 2013,Jean-Pierre Thiollet, 88 notes pour piano solo, "Solo nec plus ultra", Neva Editions, 2015, p.51. . Wang 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. Also in 2013, Wang's recital tour of Japan culminated with her recital debut at Tokyo's Suntory Hall.
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.
In a departure from her previously predominantly Russian repertoire, Wang 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. "Yuja Wang and the Art of Performance" by Janet Malcolm, The New Yorker, September 5, 2016
In March 2016, Wang played for three nights in Olivier 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 Johannes Brahms Ballades and Robert Schumann's Kreisleriana.
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.
In 2019, Wang paid tribute to Kennedy Center Honoree Michael Tilson Thomas with a rendition of "You Come Here Often?"
On January 28, 2023, Wang performed all four Rachmaninoff piano concertos and his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in a single concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, a feat conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin likened to climbing Mount Everest. An audience member collapsed during the last movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2, causing the concert to be paused while they received medical attention. The movement was restarted 20 minutes later. After completing the final concerto, Wang played “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice as an encore.
Internationally, Wang has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic; Czech Philharmonic; Vienna Philharmonic; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra; Orchestre de Paris; Staatskapelle Berlin; Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks; Gewandhausorchester Leipzig; London Philharmonic; Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Israel Philharmonic; Oslo Philharmonic; NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo; Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra; and the China Philharmonic, among others.
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."
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.
In May 2016, The New York Times reviewed her performance of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata:
Ms. Wang's virtuosity goes well beyond the 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, with 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.
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:
Swed was criticized for this aspect of his review by Anne Midgette in a Washington Post article titled "Which offends? Her short dress or critic's narrow view?"
In 2017, Michael Levin of 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".
In January 2023, Wang's more than four-hour marathon concert of all four Rachmaninoff piano concertos at Carnegie Hall garnered widespread attention and acclaim. Clemency Burton-Hill wrote that "Wang's ability to reconcile the many complexities of the moment with such grace, even joy, was notable." Zachary Woolfe in the New York Times wrote: "virtuosity on this level, in material this ravishing, is elevating to witness – which is why, even after so many hours, I was left at the end feeling an exhilarated lightness."
Although there are reports Wang released a debut CD in 1995, there is little information available about it.
Other pieces that received world premieres with Wang as soloist include the following:
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