Life and Leisure

Keyed up for US concert

By Gan Tian (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-30 08:02

Chinese pianist Yang Shanshan displayed her passion and fabulous technique at her Beijing Concert Hall recital on Sept 24. But the 29-year-old said it was just a warm-up for her performance in the United States next month.

On Oct 24, Yang will give a concert at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles, best known for being the venue of the Emmy Awards from 1977 to 1997. Yang has chosen the repertoire which includes Mozart's Sonata in C Major, Chopin's Grand Andante and Brilliant Polonaise, and Samuel Barber's Sonata for Piano.

"These are all important piano pieces: 18th century Classicism, 19th century Romanticism and 20th century Contemporary. But they are not difficult to appreciate and even an occasional concert-goer will enjoy it," Yang says.

She will also play a piano duet with an American pianist, but she wants to keep the name secret till the concert.

Yang enjoys playing piano duets. In 2008, she and Zhu He, her classmate at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles (Royal Conservatory of Brussels), held their first piano duet concert at the Shanghai Concert Hall and she played duets with Zhu several times the following year.

In addition to Western classical pieces, Yang's program for the US concert includes two Chinese folk pieces Liuyang River and Better Days (Fanshen de Rizi). Yang's husband Wang Hongwei, a leading Chinese folk tenor will also be a guest at the show, singing two songs At a Faraway Place (Zaina Yaoyuan de Difang) and The Heaven's Road (Tian Lu). Yang will accompany him on piano.

"Playing the piano to accompany Chinese folk songs is not an easy task. Some folk melodies do not have notation, so they need improvising skills. But luckily, we are husband and wife so we have plenty of time to practice," Yang says.

This is not the first time the couple has appeared on the same stage. Wang held a solo concert in Vienna's Musikverein concert hall in 2008, and Yang played the piano for him. At the end of 2008, Wang proposed to Yang. Since then, the couple has performed together frequently.

Born and raised in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, Yang started her music studies at the age of 5 and then studied with professor Wu Ying at China Central Conservatory of Music. Later she studied at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles. In 2003, she won first prize at the Excellentia Concours de Piano held in Belgium in February, 2003, and she won the International Andre Dumortier Competition in France in April, 2003.

China Daily