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PIANIST XIAYIN WANG PERFORMS SHOSTKOVICH’S FIRST PIANO CONCERTO WITH WASHINGTON SOLOIST CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, VLADIMIR LANDE CONDUCTING, AT MERKIN CONCERT HALL MAY 10TH, 2014
Performance is the Fourth of Xiayin Wang’s Five-Concert Series at Merkin Concert HallDuring the 2013-2014 Season.
The exciting pianist Xiayin Wang will appear with the Washington Soloists Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir Lande on Saturday evening, May 10that 8:00 p.m. at Merkin Concert Hall, 129 W. 67th St, New York, NY. The highlight of the program is Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto, where Ms. Wang will be joined by trumpeter Andrew Balio. The complete program follows:
Rossini: Sonata No. 3 in C major
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35 (Xiayin Wang, piano, Andrew Balio, trumpet)
Shostakovich: Chamber Symphony in C minor, Op. 110a
Ms. Wang’s five-concert series at Merkin Concert Hall will conclude on May 27th, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. with the Fine Arts Quartet.
An artist with a winning combination of superb musicianship, personal verve, and riveting technical brilliance, pianist Xiayin Wang conquers the hearts of audiences wherever she appears. As recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral soloist in such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, she has already achieved a high level of recognition for her commanding performances.
In January 2014 Ms. Wang performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the National Gallery of Art Orchestra in Washington, D.C., and received high praise from Joan Reinthaler in the January 6, 2014 edition of The Washington Post: “Ms. Wang’s finger work was precise and strong… Her drive was unrelenting and her concentration intense. It was clear that she was in command and that Lande and the orchestra were to follow, which they did well…she was great to watch.” Engaged as soloist in Gerard Schwarz’s acclaimed All-Star Orchestra, Ms. Wang was featured as part of a nationally broadcast series of performances on syndicated PBS stations throughout the United States in fall of 2013. Orchestral engagements this season include concerts with the Costa Rica National Symphony, the Santiago Symphony, and the Southwest Florida Orchestra. Ms. Wang will also be touring with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in China, South Korea, and Japan. This March she performed the world premiere of The Celestial Circus, a suite for two pianos and percussion by Richard Danielpour at Alice Tully Hall. She tours Italy with the Fine Arts Quartet and will participate this summer in the Israel Festival in Jerusalem.
During the 2012-13 season Ms. Wang recorded the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, was heard as guest soloist with the Santa Barbara Symphony, CA, and was guest soloist in an April eight-concert tour of South America with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra. In April she performed the Barber and Copland Piano Concertos with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, which she also recorded for Chandos, slated for release on October 30thof this year. In June 2013 Ms. Wang was heard with the Fine Arts Quartet in Milwaukee and participated in White Night Festival in Russia and the Musique en Graves Festival in Bordeaux with the Fine Arts Quartet.
Ms. Wang’s recording of Rachmaninoff’s Moments musicaux, Etudes-tableaux and Variations on a Theme of Corelli, released on Chandos in summer 2012, has been praised by music critics internationally. Most recently veteran piano authority Bryce Morrison (Gramophone, September 2012) lauded Ms. Wang’s new Rachmaninoff disc in the following terms: “Here, even in Rachmaninov’s most savage and turbulent pages, is playing of an awesome clarity and poise. Xiayin Wang makes her chosen composer sound greater and more indelibly Russian than ever….you will surely be lost in wonder at Wang’s pianistic but above all musical glory.” Calum MacDonald, reviewing it for BBC Music Magazine found the following words:
“Every one of the nine numbers in the Op. 33 Etudes-tableaux is vividly and incisively characterized, and she conjures a wonderful depth of feeling and range of keyboard colouring … The subtlety of Wang’s pedaling and touch in the
slower variations have a lot to do with the success of her interpretation, but above all it’s the taut rein she keeps on the overall structure that makes it so memorable. … I’m inclined to rate her Moments musicaux as the best currently available…” (June 29, 2012)
During the 2011-12 season Ms. Wang made her London debut at Cadogan Hall in a program of Haydn, Liszt, Wild, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. Ms. Wang toured with the St. Petersburg Symphony performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in St. Petersburg, Russia as well as in the United States in Houston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Washington D.C. and at Alice Tully Hall in New York. She was also heard in Haifa and Tel Aviv with the Israel Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Wang appeared in a solo recital at Alice Tully Hall in May 2011.
During the 2010-11 season, Ms. Wang was heard in concert at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall with the renowned Fine Arts Quartet, in a program which included Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat and Franck’s Quintet in F minor, as well as the Piano Sonata by Earl Wild. Reviewing the concert for The New York Times, Allan Kozinn wrote:
In the Schumann and Franck (piano quintets) Ms. Wang proved an ideal chamber player. Both works have demanding piano parts, and she gave nuanced, spirited, crisply articulated and occasionally assertive readings. But she was also mindful of the context: even in passages where the piano has the principle themes, Ms. Wang offered her carefully shaped lines as a part of the ensemble fabric, not as solo turns with quartet accompaniment…Ms. Wang’s latest recording (on Chandos) is devoted to Mr. Wild’s piano music, which she plays with a vitality and fluidity that she matched, and at times surpassed, on Tuesday. (November 27, 2010)
In October 2010, Wang participated as soloist at the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico. In June, she traveled to Vienna’s Mozart-Saal to perform Richard Danielpour’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 4 (2010) with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Philippe Entremont.
Ms. Wang’s April 2008 recital at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall drew the following praise from critic Steve Smith of The New York Times:
Even for the most gifted young pianist, it takes a lot to be noticed…Xiayin Wang is clearly doing something right. Ms. Wang’s recital at Zankel Hall on Monday night offered plenty of evidence for her success. Bach’s Violin Chaconne in D minor, as arranged for piano by Busoni, served as her calling card. It neatly illustrated two of her principal strengths: an estimable grasp of pianistic color and an ability to maintain and illuminate a strand of melody within the thickest of textures.
Other concert and recital commitments have taken Ms. Wang throughout the United States at such venues and locations as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Jordan Hall in Boston, Tanglewood, the University of Miami, Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples Florida, the Caramoor Center in Katonah, NY, Saratoga Arts Festival, Coastal Carolina Arts Festival, the Meyer Concert Series at The Smithsonian in D.C., and the East Hawaii Cultural Center on the island of Hawaii. Ms. Wang has also been heard on radio stations WFMT in Chicago and on WNYC’s “Soundcheck” with John Schaefer in New York, among others. Abroad she has appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic.
Ms. Wang has released a disc of Franck and Strauss sonatas with violinist Catherine Manoukian on the Marquis label. Naxos has released a CD of “The Enchanted Garden,” Preludes Books I and II by Richard Danielpour; Ms. Wang performed the world premiere of Book II at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in May of 2009. Currently, she is also recording chamber works by Schumann with the Fine Arts Quartet soon to be released. Other recordings have included a solo album for the Naxos label featuring the great Russian composer Aleksandr Scriabin in a range of works from his early
Chopinesque period to such later compositions as “Vers la Flamme,” Op. 72 and Deux Danses, Op. 73. In a review of the disc for
Gramophone, the noted piano authority critic Bryce Morrison wrote:
“Wang plays all this music with a special brilliance and refinement . . . . she comes up with a performance of Vers la flamme that moves superbly from a brooding menace to a final apocalyptic blaze. Finely recorded, Wang’s recital provides an unusually perceptive introduction to Scriabin’s piano music, and I now look forward to hearing her in a wide range of repertoire.”
In June 2008, Ms. Wang released a highly praised recording of Brahms’s Quartet for Piano and Strings in G Minor, Op. 25 and Quartet for Piano and Strings in C minor, Op. 60 with the Amity Players on Marquis Classics. Her debut CD, “Introducing Xiayin Wang,” was released on the Marquis Classics label in 2007. This disc features works by Mozart, Ravel, Bach, Scriabin and Gershwin.
Xiayin Wang completed studies at the Shanghai Conservatory and garnered an enviable record of first prize awards and special honors for her performances throughout China, most notably in the Fu Zhou National Piano Competition, Hang Zhou Instrumental Competition, Zhe Jiang Competition and the National Piano Competition in Beijing. She was heard with some of China’s leading orchestras, including the Beijing Opera House Symphony and the Zhe Jiang Symphony, and in many of the country’s most prestigious concert halls. In addition to her performances in China, Ms. Wang has been heard in Europe with the Tenerife Symphony of Spain. Ms. Wang, who began piano studies at the age of five, subsequently came to New York in 1997 and, in 2000, was
awarded the “Certificate of Achievement” by the Associated Music Teacher League of New York, winning an opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall. She also pursued studies at the Manhattan School of Music and won the school’s Eisenberg Concerto Competition in 2002, as well as the Roy M. Rubinstein Award. Xiayin Wang holds Bachelor’s, Master’s and Professional Studies degrees from the Manhattan School of Music.
Russian-American conductor Vladimir Lande is quickly making a name for himself on the international conducting circuit. Appointed Associate Conductor of Russia’s St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra in 2012, he previously served as the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor for three years.
In the 2012-2013 season, Maestro Lande led the St. Petersburg State Symphony on a highly successful tour of South Korea and guest conducted the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra on a tour throughout Latin America, which included two concerts in Sala São Paulo, Brazil, and appearances in Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador. That same season he guest conducted the National Chamber Orchestra of Chile “Camerata” in Santiago de Chile and made a recording of the Shostakovich Cello Concertos with Dmitry Kouzov and the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra for Delos. For the same label he recorded new works by American composer Sean Hickey. He also released two CDs on the Naxos label of music by the unjustly neglected Russian composer of Polish-Jewish origins, Mieczysław Weinberg, as part of an ongoing project that will ultimately yield 17 recordings.
Maestro Lande led the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra on a 24-concert “Tour of the Americas” to nine countries in the fall of 2011, performing in such venues as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York; Symphony Hall, Boston; Kimmel Hall, Philadelphia; and Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore, as well as at major venues in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Peru, Chile and Uruguay.
In June of 2014, Lande will premiere, in collaboration with St. Petersburg’s Jacobson Ballet, a new ballet, “Letters of the Queen,” based on the true story of England’s King Edward VIII and his love for an American women. At the request of Prince Charles, performances will take place in London, Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities. In 2014-15, he will conduct the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma (Rome Symphony Orchestra) and returns with the St. Petersburg State Symphony to Asia, this time to South Korea, China, and Japan.
Maestro Lande has guest conducted the Baltimore Symphony; the National Gallery Orchestra (in Washington D.C. and on a U.S. tour); the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra; and Baltimore Opera Orchestra. He regularly conducts the noted Donetsk Ballet Company Orchestra, and is Music Director of the COSMIC Symphony Orchestra, the Washington Soloists Chamber Orchestra in Washington D.C., and the Johns Hopkins University Chamber Orchestra.
Maestro Lande conducted the opening concerts of the internationally renowned White Nights Festival, notably in a performance at the Grand Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has also been Music Director and Conductor of the Contemporary American Music Festival in Washington, D.C. Recent tours have taken him to New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom (including a performance at St Martin-in- the-Fields, London), Italy, Russia, and throughout the United States.
Maestro Lande has an extraordinarily active recording career. His CDs of Schubert’s Unfinished and Great Symphonies were released on Brilliant Classic in the summer of 2011, as was a CD of American composer James Aikman’s music on Naxos. In June of
2011 Maestro Lande launched a series of video recordings for Naxos of “Concerts from the Palaces of St. Petersburg.” Forthcoming are multiple high-definition video projects with the St. Petersburg Symphony. His many other recording projects include works by Respighi and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, among many others.
Vladimir Lande has collaborated with many of today’s leading soloists and rising stars, including Hilary Hahn, Olga Kern, Dmitry Kouzov, Xiayin Wang, Peter Laul, Maxim Mogilevsky, Eldar Nebolsin, Tianwa Yang, Gary Louie, Eugene Ugorski, and Marika Bournaki.
Maestro Lande also maintains a successful career as an oboist, both as a soloist and with the renowned Poulenc Trio.
The Washington Soloists Chamber Orchestra (WSCO) was formed in 2007. Having performed mainly in Washington D.C., New York, Maryland, and Virginia, the orchestra’s upcoming tours include performances nationally and in South America and Korea.
Innovative programming covering music of four centuries, from baroque to compositions commissioned and written specially for the WSCO by contemporary composers, the WSCO’s mission is to educate and develop a new audience, through a full range of educational programs for ages pre-kindergarten through adults. Some innovative programming ideas include the project “Fragrance of the Sound” for which perfumers, inspired by a particular piece of music, create their scents which they will represent during the performance.
For further information please contact Hemsing Associates at 212-772-1132 or www.hemsingpr.com
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