Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism, and interpretive sensitivity.
She 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. She received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2010 and her first Grammy nomination in 2017 (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for her recording of Franck, Kurtág, Previn & Schumann with violinist Augustin Hadelich.
In the last decade, 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 has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and BBC Philharmonic, among many others, working with such distinguished conductors as James Conlon, Edo de Waart, Manfred Honeck, Lorin Maazel, Leonard Slatkin, and Jaap van Zweden. She has appeared in recital at New York’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Symphony Hall, and Zurich’s Tonhalle.
Born in Seoul, Korea, in 1986, Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at age four. In 1997 she moved to the United States to study in the pre-college division of the Juilliard School. After winning the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Student Competition, she performed Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with that orchestra at just twelve years old. She graduated from Juilliard with special honor as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize. Yang appears in the film In the Heart of Music, a documentary about the 2005 Cliburn Competition. She is a Steinway artist.
