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Virtuoso pianist Yuja Wang, just 24 years old and petite in size, astounds audiences with the tremendous power and blazing speed required for Rachmaninoff’s Russian showpiece, “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” at Pacific Symphony’s next classical concert, “Yuja Wang Plays Rachmaninoff.” Recipient of the 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant and Classic FM Gramophone Awards 2009 Young Artist of the Year, the Chinese pianist has been called “jaw-dropping,” “superhuman” and “fearless,” with The Philadelphia Inquirer adding, “A machine gun of feathers couldn’t have kept pace with Wang.” Conducted by Music Director Carl St.Clair (his last concert this season), Rachmaninoff’s lush Romanticism is the peaceful center to music written as protest: Martinu’s heartbreaking “Memorial to Lidice,” offers solace to the victims of World War II and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, is a bold, brilliant and cleverly disguised reaction against artistic censorship in the Soviet Union.
Taking place Thursday through Saturday, June 2-4, at 8 p.m. in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, the concert includes a preview talk with Alan Chapman beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$109; for more information or to purchase tickets, call (714) 755-5799 or visit www.PacificSymphony.org.
“For the last two concerts of the season, we are presenting programs featuring Russian music—beginning with Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Variations, along with Shostakovich’s powerful symphony of triumph over oppression—Symphony No. 5,” says Maestro St.Clair. “This, along with the final program of the season featuring Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, are linked together to add a balance of architecture to the season’s ending. The most important point about the second half of this season is the variety of repertoire, the sonic experiences and the musical spectrum we have offered our audiences. These final two concerts are filled with rapturous beauty, gut-wrenching tragedy, orchestral power and unforgettable song and melody.
“I am looking forward to sharing Rachmaninoff’s beloved concerto with Ms. Wang.”
“The arrival of Chinese-born pianist Yuja Wang on the musical scene is an exhilarating and unnerving development. To listen to her in action is to re-examine whatever assumptions you may have had about how well the piano can actually be played.”—The San Francisco Chronicle
Widely recognized for playing that combines the spontaneity and fearless imagination of youth with the discipline and precision of a mature artist, Wang has been praised for her authority over the most complex technical demands of the repertoire, the depth of her musical insight, as well as her fresh interpretations and graceful, charismatic stage presence. In the few short years since her 2005 debut with the National Arts Center Orchestra led by Pinchas Zukerman, Wang performed as a soloist with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, received the 2006 Gilmore Young Artist Award and released three albums, most recently a collaboration with Maestro Claudio Abbado and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra for “Rachmaninov.”
With just two remaining concerts, the Symphony’s 2010-11 season, dubbed the “Year of the Piano” continues to spotlight the most outstanding pianists today and composers and repertoire that stand the test of time. For this concert, the last of the Russian Romantics, Sergei Rachmaninoff, creates an extraordinary set of 24 variations on a beloved violin melody by Nicolo Paganini, with technical brilliance that soars ahead in the 18th variation, where Rachmaninoff literally turns the theme on its head.
To open the concert, Martinu’s “Memorial to Lidice,” glows with humanity for the people of Lidice. Written in the middle of World War II, just 14 months after the destruction of the Czechoslovakian town, the piece quotes the traditional Slavic hymn to Saint Wenceslaus as well as the triumphant theme from the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. After intermission, the orchestra performs Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, called a “protest symphony” for it simultaneously pleased the authorities in a brutally repressive environment, while giving the audience an outlet for their emotions caused by the Stalinist regime.
St.Clair and Wang return for Classical Connections—“Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody”—offering an afternoon of conversation and performance that includes Martinu’s “Memorial to Lidice” and Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” on Sunday, June 5, at 3 p.m., in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.
Pacific Symphony’s Classical series performances are made possible by the Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation, with additional support from the Symphony’s official airline, American Airlines; official hotel, The Westin South Coast Plaza; official classical music station, KUSC; and official television station, KOCE-TV. The Thursday, June 2, concert is sponsored by Symphony 100; Friday, June 3, is sponsored by Janice Johnson; and Saturday, June 4, is sponsored by Tom and Vina Williams Slattery and William J. Gillespie.
