A rapt audience witnessed a very special musical event where superficial differences in musical style and personal presentation counted for nothing with musicianship of the highest order.
The San Francisco Symphony wound up its Asian tour in Tokyo with a program (Sheng, Shostakovich, Mahler) and soloist (pianist Yuja Wang) well calculated to generate strong audience response.
Yuja Wang’s blazing Shostakovich First Piano Concerto and MTT’s stellar Firebird blended into a cohesive narrative at Davies Hall that showed us how successful performances can coincide with successful programming.
Beethoven's mighty Hammerklavier Sonata and Schumann's Kreisleriana made for a weighty Verbier recital programme which at times felt distinctly like 'work in progress'.
The combination of Esa-Pekka Salonen and the New York Philharmonic, in the first of three evenings devoted solely to Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie proved riveting and exhilarating.
To celebrate another landmark season, San Diego Symphony Music Director Jahja Ling brought forth a multifaceted program featuring star Chinese pianist Yuja Wang.
When a back problem forced Gustavo Dudamel to cancel, the Tonhalle’s new chief conductor Lionel Bringuier picked up the programme and changed it to an all-Brahms escapade.
Ahead of its US tour with Michael Tilson Thomas, the London Symphony Orchestra flexed its muscles in a display of orchestral strength on home turf in the Barbican.
Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang play all three of Brahms' sonatas for violin and piano in one evening, without ever looking at each other. They did not seem to need to.
Yuja Wang has the virtuosity for Rachmaninov in spades and stamina to spare, but her technically brilliant performance raised the question of whether it all wasn’t a little too easy.
Yuja Wang’s latest recital at Carnegie Hall, which took place Tuesday evening, is best compared to a triple-decker sandwich with very excellent bread and questionable innards. Ms. Wang is known for her intimidating technique: powerful, playful, and superlative. Her energy is at its highest during her showy encores, and her pianism is at its most impressive with virtuosic Russian repertoire.
Other than the gigantic Salle des Combins, a semi-permanent white tent seating a couple of thousand, the major venue for the Verbier Festival is the local église, perched higher up the mountains than the main square. Marked by a tall bell-tower shaped like a cross, the hall is prowlike, dark, and claustrophobic, enlivened only by coloured slits of light coming from behind the audience.
Yuja Wang is all about rhythm. It would be easy to write about how her playing doesn’t have the profundity or architectural sense of more mature artists, but that would be to miss her considerable achievements – and with a young artist, it’s what’s achieved that should count.
Faced with ageing audiences, dwindling funding and slashed budgets, many fine orchestras feel besieged at home these days, let alone being able to embark on costly tours overseas – all the more reason why the San Francisco Symphony’s ambitious tour of six cities in Asia is a cause for celebration.
It was only a year ago when Yuja Wang last visited the Hollywood Bowl, leaving tongues wagging and gray-hairs clutching to their heart medication. The audience may not remember how she played, or even what she played (it was the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no. 3). But they sure remember what she wore—the "little orange dress.
It’s hard to ignore Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, and sometimes for the wrong reasons: the controversy about That Dress (a daringly short designer frock paired with killer heels) ruffled some feathers amongst traditional classical music critics and concertgoers, and provoked a healthy debate about concert attire.
The programme read a little like a musical version of Kim's Game: not one but two full-scale symphonies, the same number of prefatory pieces, and then a piano concerto to boot: a test for the audience as well as the orchestra. The principal connexion between the works – apart from their contemporaneity – was the celebrated conductor, Serge Koussevitsky.
Les mélomanes de Québec ont eu droit à la crème de la crème avec deux des plus grands musiciens de notre temps, dans un programme livré avec fougue et un contrôle instrumental absolu.
Dans la Deuxième Symphonie de Brahms, le chef américain cherche l'harmonie, la beauté sonore, l'équilibre, la clarté des textures et du dessin. L'Orchestre de Paris se couvre de gloire.
Bei Bringuiers Abschied von der Tonhalle herrscht mit Strauss' Don Quixote musikalisches Theater auf dem Podium, bevor Yuja Wang Prokofjews Drittes spielt.
Yuja Wang et du Malher Chamber Orchestra qui inaugurent leur tournée européenne à la Fondation Louis Vuitton. Un programme audacieux qui confronte l’esthétique néoclassique de Stravinsky avec le romantisme à fleur de peau de Chopin, et les plaçant dans l’héritage de Mozart et de Beethoven.
À la tête de l’Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, le généreux chef italien a offert au public un rare moment de bonheur symphonique, avec l’engagement inépuisable dont on lui sait gré.
La Orquesta Simón Bolívar con Dudamel en la dirección ofrecieron una enérgica y brillante Turangalila que enganchó al público del Palau desde el primer momento.
Leonidas Kavakos und Yuja Wang scheinen auf den ersten Blick vielleicht wenig gemeinsam haben, doch schon nach der ersten Brahms-Sonate ist klar: diese beiden Musiker passen perfekt zusammen - und zu Johannes Brahms.
