Yuja Wang begins the 2021/22 season her five exciting performances at the Lucerne Festival. Ms. Wang made her Lucerne Festival debut in August 2009, performing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Claudio Abbado. This year, she is making her mark at the 2021 Summer Festival as “Artiste Étoile.”
Her first performance on August 21 will be with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, led by Gregory Ahss and Raphael Christ. The program features Mozart’s Overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K. 621 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, with Yuja performing Mozart’s most historically popular and influential Concerto for piano and orchestra in D minor, K. 466.
On August 25, she performs in “Crazy for Piano” with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and conductor Roberto González-Monjas. This 40 min event offers host-led programs for beginners, connoisseurs, and explorers in the early evening, all with free admission. The next evening, on August 26, Yuja and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of Robert González-Monjas perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s incomparable F minor Concerto, which combines dance-like exuberance with contrapuntal mastery. She then will perform Janáček’s whimsical Capriccio for left-handed piano.
On August 28, Yuja joins the Mariinsky Orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev, for a sold-out concert featuring a stirring all-Russian program. Ms. Wang will perform Rachmaninoff’s focused yet subtle and complex masterpiece, his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 4 in G minor, Op. 40. Also on the program is Prokofiev’s four touching and exciting pieces from Romeo and Juliet and Stravinsky’s breathtaking Petrushka.
Ms. Wang’s final performance will take place on September 11, with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, led by Iván Fischer. She will perform Lizst’s notorious First Piano Concerto, which he tailored to his own manual skills, including his breathtaking talent. The program concludes with Lizst’s A Faust Symphony, S 108, which was inspired by Goethe’s Faust.
For more information about Yuja’s performances at the 2021 Lucerne Festival, click here.
Photo credit: © Julia Wesely