Twenty-two year old Chinese pianist Yuja Wang is widely recognized for playing that combines the spontaneity and fearless imagination of youth with the discipline and precision of a mature artist. Regularly lauded for her controlled, prodigious technique, Yuja’s command of the piano has been described as “astounding” and “superhuman,” and she has been praised 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. Following her San Francisco recital debut The San Francisco Chronicle wrote “The arrival of Chinese-born pianist Yuja Wang on the musical scene is an exhilarating and unnerving development. To listen to her in action is to re-examine whatever assumptions you may have had about how well the piano can actually be played,” and The Washington Post called Yuja’s Kennedy Center recital debut “jaw-dropping.”

Yuja is an exclusive recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon. Her debut recording, Sonatas & Etudes, released in the spring of 2009 “suggests a combination of blazing technique and a rare instinct for poetry” wrote Gramophone magazine, which named Yuja the Classic FM Gramophone Awards 2009 Young Artist of the Year. The recording includes Chopin’s “Funeral March,” Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, and Scriabin’s Sonata no. 2, and etudes by Ligeti.

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 Yuja 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. 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. She has worked with many of the world’s esteemed conductors including Claudio Abbado, Charles Dutoit, Robert Spano, Michael Stern, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, and Pinchas Zuckerman. 

As a young emerging pianist, each season Yuja makes a number of important debuts, both with major orchestras and in recital. This fall she will make her Carnegie Hall orchestral debut performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Charles Dutoit and perform the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s piano concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra led by Andrew Litton in Washington DC. During the 2009-10 season she will make her debut with the Charlotte Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Portland Symphony Orchestra and Montreal Symphony Orchestra in North America, and abroad with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Frankfurter Museumsorchester, Filarmonica della Scala, Gulbenkian Orchestra and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic. She will make recital debuts at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Hong Kong City Hall Theater and the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

Additional highlights of Yuja’s 2009-10 season include an 11-city U.S. tour with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra led by Long Yu in honor of the orchestra’s 130th anniversary and seven performances with the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Patrick Summers during the orchestra’s 20th Anniversary U.S. tour. She will also perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony and New World Symphony led by Michael Tilson Thomas. Yuja will perform with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado in Beijing, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Spain and in London, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. She will give recitals in San Francisco, Vancouver, Detroit, Washington DC, Zurich, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon and Venice, among other cities worldwide. In the summer of 2010, Yuja will return to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Verbier Festival.

Born in Beijing in 1987, Yuja began studying piano at age six, with her earliest public performances taking place in China, Australia and Germany, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under Ling Yuan and Zhou Guangren. Following three years, from 1999 to 2001, at the Morningside Music summer program at Calgary’s Mount Royal College, an artistic and cultural exchange program between Canada and China, Yuja moved to Canada and began studying with Hung-Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone at the Mount Royal College Conservatory. In 2002, when Yuja was 15, she won Aspen Music Festival’s concerto competition and moved to the U.S. to study with Gary Graffman at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she graduated in 2008. In 2006 Yuja received the Gilmore Young Artist Award. 

Last updated July 2009. Contact Opus 3 Artists for the most up-to-date version.