Yuja Wang travels to Seoul and Tokyo with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel, their Music & Artistic Director, who will be leading the performances, in part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Centennial celebrations.
The first concert, featuring the full orchestra, takes place at the Seoul Arts Center on March 16, where they perform Adams’ Must the Devil have all the best tunes?, a new piano concerto that Adams composed for Ms. Wang, which they debuted on March 7 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Washington Post wrote:
“During the concerto’s slow middle section — this is a single-movement work — the piano line treaded a cool, quiet path through a landscape of heavy-breathing basses and woodwinds murmuring the kinds of sinister melodies Bernard Herrmann might have used to underscore a Hitchcock heroine wandering into mortal peril. Wang’s phrasing here was clear, chaste and feather-light, proving yet again that she is as impressive for her poetic sensibilities as for her pyrotechnic dazzle.”
On the second part of the program, the audience will be treated to Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.
Remaining in Seoul for their second performance, Yuja joins the LA Philharmonic Principal Ensemble at Lotte Concert Hall on March 18. On March 19, Ms. Wang and the orchestra’s Principal Ensemble appear in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall for a program featuring Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Ligeti’s 6 bagatelles, Ibert’s 3 pièces brèves and Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor. For their final performance, on March 20, also at Suntory Hall, Ms. Wang is reunited with the full orchestra for an encore of their concert in Seoul.
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