Joyce Yang

Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (The Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Grammy Award-nominated pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism and interpretive sensitivity.

Ms. Yang first came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant at 19 years old, she took home two additional awards: Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the Takàcs Quartet) and Best Performance of a New Work.

In the last decade, Ms. Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), showcasing her colorful musical personality in solo recitals and collaborations with the world’s top orchestras and chamber musicians through more than 1,000 debuts and re-engagements. She received the 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant and earned her first Grammy Award nomination (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for her recording of Franck, Kurtág, Previn & Schumann with violinist Augustin Hadelich.

Ms. Yang’s other notable orchestral engagements have included the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Hong Kong Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, as well as the Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, and New Zealand symphony orchestras. She was also featured in a five-year Rachmaninoff concerto cycle with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony.

In 2020 Ms. Yang released her tenth album performing Jonathan Leshnoff’s Piano Concerto that was written for her with the Kansas City Symphony (Reference Recordings). As a champion of new music, Ms. Yang has also premiered and recorded Michael Torke’s Piano Concerto with the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller (Albany Records). Ms. Yang’s wide-ranging discography also includes two celebrated solo discs (Collage and Wild Dreams, Avie Records). Ms. Yang also released a live-performance recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Denmark’s Odense Symphony Orchestra (Bridge Records).

In recent years, Ms. Yang has focused on promoting creative ways to introduce classical music to new audiences. She served as the Guest Artistic Director for the Laguna Beach Music Festival in California, curating concerts that explore the “art-inspires-art” concept—highlighting the relationship between music and dance while simultaneously curating outreach activities to young students. Ms. Yang’s collaboration with the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet of Half/Cut/Split was a marriage between music and dance to illuminate the ingenuity of Schumann’s musical language. The group toured nationwide, including five performances at the Joyce Theater in New York.

In the 2021-22 season, Ms. Yang will share her versatile repertoire in over 40 cities in the U.S. and Europe. After returning to the stage in summer performances at Wolf Trap (with the National Symphony), Grant Park Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and Sun Valley Music Festival, Ms. Yang will appear with the New World Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Tucson Symphony and Rhode Island Philharmonic, among many others. Furthermore, she will give a world premiere performance of Reinaldo Moya’s Piano Concerto with the Bangor Symphony, which draws inspiration from Venezuelen artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. In recital, Ms. Yang will present daring programs of Bach, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky and Kernis, as well as collaborate with the Takács Quartet.

Born in 1986 in Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at the age of four. In 1997 Ms. Yang moved to the United States to begin studies at the pre-college division of The Juilliard School with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky. After winning The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Student Competition, she performed Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with that orchestra at just 12 years old. She graduated from Juilliard with special honor as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize, and in 2011 she won its 30th Annual William A. Petschek Piano Recital Award.

Ms. Yang appears in the film In the Heart of Music, a documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She is a Steinway artist.