Biography
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Born
10 February 1987 (age 37)
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Born In
Beijing, China
Yuja Wang (Chinese: 王羽佳; pinyin: Wáng Yǔjiā; born February 10, 1987) is a Chinese classical pianist. She was born in Beijing.
Yuja began playing piano at age six, and studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under Ling Yuan and Zhou Guangren. Following three years, from 1999 to 2001, at the Morningside Music summer program at Calgary’s Mount Royal College, an artistic and cultural exchange program between Canada and China, Yuja moved to Canada and began studying with Hung Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone at the Mount Royal College Conservatory. In 2002, when Yuja was 15, she moved to the U.S. to study with Gary Graffman at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she graduated in 2008.
Yuja has performed with many of the world’s prestigious orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, New World Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, in the U.S., and abroad with the Tonhalle Orchestra, China Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, the NHK Symphony in Tokyo and Orchestra Mozart, among others. In 2006 Yuja made her New York Philharmonic debut at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival and performed with the orchestra the following season under Lorin Maazel during the Philharmonic’s Japan/Korea visit. That same season she performed in Leeds, U.K., and toured the Netherlands with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic led by Yuri Temirkanov. In 2008 Yuja toured the United States with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields led by Sir Neville Marriner and in 2009 she performed as a soloist with the You Tube Symphony Orchestra led by Michael Tilson Thomas at Carnegie Hall. She has given recitals in major cities throughout North America and abroad, is a dedicated performer of chamber music, and makes regular appearances at festivals including the Aspen Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Gilmore Festival, the Schleswig Holstein Festival and the Verbier Festival. She has worked with many of the world’s esteemed conductors including Claudio Abbado, Charles Dutoit, Robert Spano, Michael Stern, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, and Pinchas Zuckerman.
In 2001, Yuja won Third Prize and Special Jury Prize at the First Sendai International Music Competition in Sendai, Japan. In 2002, when Yuja was 15, she won Aspen Music Festival’s concerto competition. Yuja was named a 2006 biennial Gilmore Young Artist award winner.
Yuja is an exclusive recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon. Her debut recording, Sonatas & Etudes, was released in the spring of 2009.
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