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Pianist Yuja Wang. (Photo by Christian Steiner)
Yuja Wang.
Remember the name.
You’ll be hearing more from her - and about her.
Wang’s attention-getting abilities were evident on Thursday at Copley Symphony Hall, where the 22-year-old Beijing-born, New York-based pianist was the soloist in a concert with music director Long Yu and China’s Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, presented on the La Jolla Music Society’s Celebrity International Concert Series.
Wang was in many ways phenomenal, a keyboard dazzler who combined artistry and virtuosity, passion and pyrotechnics. She’s almost surely destined for a major career. It didn’t hurt that she looked lovely in a figure-hugging purple gown that showed off her strong, slender arms.
As petite as she is, she packed real power in the 34-minute-long performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. And no matter where they sat in Symphony Hall, audience members had a fine view of her hands, thanks to the keyboard images on the screen above the stage.
“Tonight we are trying something new,” Christopher Beach, the La Jolla Music Society’s president and artistic director, told concert-goers. Explaining that he saw the camera technique at this year’s Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, he added: “I thought it was marvelous. We’re going to give it a try here.”
Great idea. If rock concerts can use video screens, why not classical performances?
I found it fascinating to watch Wang’s hands everywhere from the opening movement’s solemnly reverberant chords to the finale’s oh-so-fast staccato passages that were a supreme test of dexterity. At times, as in the famous, throbbingly romantic theme, Wang could have done more to make the melody sing.
But there was no question of the talent of this graduate of Philadelphia’s famed Curtis Institute. (Her teacher, by the way, was Gary Graffman, who also taught pianist Lang Lang, the superstar who performs on the music society’s Orchestra Series in April.)
So enthusiastic was the audience’s reaction to Wang that she responded with three encores: Mozart’s “Turkish March,” heard in an astonishingly showy arrangement by pianist Arcadi Volodos; Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee,” which traveled at supersonic speed in Georges Cziffra’s version; and Gluck’s wistful, nuanced “Melodie,” which Wang arranged herself.
Given what she can do, and how the audience responded, it only seems right to invite her back. Since the La Jolla Music Society presented the Shanghai Symphony on Thursday and the Shanghai Quartet last month, a Wang recital seems logical.
The Shanghai Symphony made a pleasing impression, whether accompanying Wang in the Rachmaninoff or performing Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture” and Bao Yuan-Kai’s “China Air” Suite.
Given President Obama’s recent trip to China, which included Shanghai, the concert was particularly timely and relevant. After all, China counts on the U.S. to be an important market for its goods.
So the touring Shanghai Symphony could be considered a valuable musical export. Though it’s not one of the world’s leading symphonic ensembles, the quality was consistently good during the Symphony Hall program that was recorded for future national broadcast on American Public Media’s “Performance Today.”
Conductor Long Yu guided the orchestra with confident authority in Tchaikovsky’s Shakespeare-based piece. Even if the music didn’t always achieve an ideal flow - the phrasing was sometimes rather brittle - there were ardent outpourings from the violins and violas, and the fortissimos were robust.
The “China Air” Suite was an East-West fusion consisting of excerpts from an epic work written by a veteran Chinese composer and educator. It sounded a bit like movie music. Or, perhaps, like Debussy at the Great Wall of China. So conservative were the harmonies that it was as if Stravinsky had never been born.
Long Yu conducted the score with admirable energy and attention to detail, and the performance was enhanced by contributions from the flute, violin, piano, harp and percussion.
The orchestra has every right to be a source of pride in Shanghai, China’s financial center. If it’s true that art follows commerce, the Shanghai Symphony could have a bright future.
Event info: The La Jolla Music Society’s Celebrity International Orchestra Series continues at Copley Symphony Hall on March 19, with conductor Valery Gergiev, pianist Denis Matsuev, and the Mariinsky Orchestra, and April 17, with conductor Christoph Eschenbach and pianist Lang Lang. Tickets/information: (858) 459-3728; www.ljms.org
Valerie Scher is the SDNN Arts & Entertainment editor. You can reach her at valerie.scher(at)sdnn.com; follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/vscher
Tags: Barack Obama, beijing, Christopher Beach, Copley Symphony Hall, Curtis Institute of Music, Gary Graffman, La Jolla Music Society review, Lang Lang, Long Yu, Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, SDNN, Shanghai, Shanghai Symphony review, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Yuja Wang review
Comment by: KMW Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:05 pm
When I asked about the large number of students at Copley last night, a LJMS staff person told me they brought in 450 students. Terrific.