Yuja Wang

Yuja Wang (born February 10, 1987) is a Chinese pianist.

Born in Beijing, she began learning piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

By age 21, she was already an internationally recognized concert pianist and signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon.

She has since established herself as one of the leading artists of her generation.

Wang currently lives in New York.

Wang comes from an artistic family.

Her mother, Zhai Jieming, is a dancer and her father, Wang Jianguo, is a percussionist.

Both live in Beijing.

Wang began learning the piano at age six.

At age seven, she began studies at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music.

At age eleven, Wang entered the Morningside Music Bridge International Music Festival (at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta) as the festival's youngest student.

In 1998, at the age of eleven, Wang received third prize in the Ettlingen International Competition for Young Pianists in Germany.

Three years later, she won the third prize and the special jury prize (awarded to an outstanding finalist less than 20 years of age, with prize money of 500,000 Japanese yen) at the first Sendai International Music Competition in Sendai, Japan.

In 2002, Wang won the concerto competition at the Aspen Music Festival.

In 2003, Wang made her European debut with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Switzerland, playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 under the baton of David Zinman.

She made her North American debut in Ottawa in the 2005–2006 season, replacing Radu Lupu performing that Beethoven concerto with Pinchas Zukerman conducting.

On September 11, 2005, Wang was named a 2006 biennial Gilmore Young Artist Award winner, given to the most promising pianists age 22 and younger.

As part of the award, she received $15,000, appeared at Gilmore Festival concerts, and had a new piano work commissioned for her.

In 2006, Wang made her New York Philharmonic debut at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival.

The following season, she performed with the orchestra under Lorin Maazel during a tour of Japan and Korea by the Philharmonic.

In March 2007, Wang's breakthrough came when she replaced Martha Argerich in concerts held in Boston.

Argerich had cancelled her appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on four subscription concerts from March 8 to 13.

Wang performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Charles Dutoit conducting.

At the age of fifteen, Wang entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied for five years with Gary Graffman and graduated in 2008.

Graffman said that Wang's technique impressed him during her audition, but "it was the intelligence and good taste" of her interpretations that distinguished her.

In 2008, Wang toured the U.S. with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields led by Sir Neville Marriner.

Her performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" is featured on the Verbier Festival highlights DVD from 2008.

In 2009, she performed as a soloist with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas at Carnegie Hall.

Wang performed 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 Orchestra.

In 2009, Wang performed and recorded Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto in G Minor with Kurt Masur at the Verbier Festival, accompanied by Kirill Troussov, David Aaron Carpenter, Maxim Rysanov, Sol Gabetta, and Leigh Mesh.

In 2012, Wang toured with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Zubin Mehta in Israel and the U.S., with a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York in September.

Wang toured Asia in November 2012 with the San Francisco Symphony and its conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

In February 2013, Wang performed and recorded Prokofiev's Concerto No. 2 and Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3 with Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Venezuelan Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar.

Also in 2013, Wang's recital tour of Japan culminated with her recital debut at Tokyo's Suntory Hall.

Wang made her Berlin Philharmonic debut in May 2015, performing Sergei Prokofiev's 2nd Piano Concerto with Conductor Paavo Järvi.

The performance was broadcast live through the orchestra's Digital Concert Hall.

In a departure from her previously predominantly Russian repertoire, Wang played Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9, the Jeunehomme, in February 2016 at David Geffen Hall in New York on four successive nights with Charles Dutoit conducting, then, in her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev in Munich and Paris.

In March 2016, Wang played for three nights in Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting.

In a recital at Carnegie Hall in May 2016, she played Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29, the Hammerklavier, and two Brahms Ballades and Robert Schumann's Kreisleriana.

Wang performed with the National Youth Orchestra of China for its Carnegie Hall premiere on July 22, 2017, with conductor Ludovic Morlot of the Seattle Symphony, performing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor.