This fall, Beijing native Yuja Wang begins her season-long term as the Artist-in-Residence at China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). The residency will connect one of today’s premier artists with new audiences in the city and beyond its borders. She presents masterworks from the Romantic and 20th century eras in a series of six concerts, including the first-ever complete Bartók concerto cycle to be performed in China.
On August 18 she is joined by percussionist Martin Grubinger and The Percussive Planet Ensemble, in a programme titled “A Talk Between Piano and Percussion.” Works featured include Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and John Psathas’ Studies. The concert will also receive a live online broadcast via Medici.tv. Ms. Wang plays Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Ravel’s Piano Concert in G on August 21 with the NCPA Orchestra and conductor Lu Shao-Chia in a concert event called “Colour and Impression.”
Yuja presents a solo recital at the NCPA on September 2, performing selections by Scriabin, Chopin, and Granados, in addition to Beethoven’s thrilling “Hammerklavier” Sonata Op. 106, which she recently performed to enthusiastic audiences in California and at New York’s Carnegie Hall (enjoy the Medici.tv broadcast of that recital).
She returns to the NCPA later this season for performances with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas on November 18, featuring Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and again on January 6 & 7 with Maestro Shao-Chia and the NCPA Orchestra to complete the Bartók cycle with Concertos No. 2 and 3.