MUSIC

Palomino Entertainment Group will present the brilliant young pianist Xiayin Wang in Concert on Friday, January 15, 2010 at 8:00 PM at Boston’s esteemed Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory of Music, 290 Huntington Avenue. Tickets priced at $25, $20 and $15 are on sale on now at the Jordan Hall Box Office [30 Gainsborough Street, Boston], on line at www.tix.com or by calling 800-595-4849 [800-595-4TIX]. Student and seniors with identification may purchase tickets for $10 at the Jordan Hall Box Office only. For more information and box office hours, call Jordan Hall Box office at 617-585-1260. Jordan Hall is wheelchair accessible.

Steinway Artist Xiayin Wang is an impressively young and brilliant pianist who has played herself all the way from China to New York City. She has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, rallying raving reviews as she goes.

Ms. Wang has released three recordings. Her latest CD released in May 2009 is a solo album for the Naxos label, Scriabin: Piano Music, Poems, Waltzes, Dances. The release features the great Russian composer Alexander 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.

With each performance, the flawless marriage of her passion and technical skill takes audiences to another world. She instills within them a redefined appreciation for the beauty of music by inviting them to take an adventure with her through classical compositions.

27-year-old Xiayin Wang [pronounced Sha-een Wong] is from Shanghai, China, the daughter of a traditional Chinese doctor [her mother] and a well-known musician father. Wang’s father plays the erhu, a two-stringed Chinese violin which can be traced back to instruments introduced in China more than a thousand years ago. Her father has performed widely and Xiayin considers him a role model, drawing inspiration from his elegance of performing. She started playing the piano at age 5 after taking an interest in the instrument during a kindergarten music class.

“After the class was over I would always go to the piano and try to imitate what the teacher played,” Xiayin states. Her teacher suggested that Wang’s parents enroll the girl in piano classes and from then on, her musicianship developed quickly.

By the time Wang had completed studies at the Shanghai Conservatory, she’d garnered an enviable record of first prize awards and special honors for her performances throughout China. Soon she was performing with many of China’s leading orchestras and in the country’s most prestigious concert halls.

Subsequently, Wang went 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 now holds Bachelor of Music, Master of Music and Professional Studies degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and is also a doctoral candidate.

This past May, Ms. Wang presented a concert at the new Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. Included in her program was the world premiere of “Enchanted Garden,” Preludes Book II by noted composer, Richard Danielpour. (Book I was premiered by Christopher O'Riley on July 4, 1992 at the Aspen Music Festival). In December 2009, Ms. Wang will record both Preludes Book I & II for Naxos. She has been invited back to the Smithsonian Institution where she will also present the Washington D.C. premiere of the work in March 2010, as part of their Meyer Concert Series.

Other highlights include Ms. Wang’s performance of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major with the Manhattan Chamber Players in New York under the direction of the estimable conductor Eduard Zilberkant.

Ms. Wang has also performed previously in recital and as soloist in California, Washington, New Mexico, New Jersey and Florida, notably at the Naples Philharmonic Hall in Florida and as featured soloist with the Miami Pops Orchestra.

The 2009 - 2010 season is highlighted by engagements with Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, as well as performances in Connecticut, Virginia and Michigan, tours of North and South Carolina and the Hawaiian Islands, her January Boston debut at Jordan Hall and a performance at Nichols Hall at the Music Institute of Chicago.

Last summer, Ms Wang was heard in recital at Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts where she presented a formidable program featuring Prokofiev’s Sarcasms, Op. 17, three sonatas by Scarlatti, Scriabin’s Fantaisie in B minor, Op. 28, Piazolla’s Adios Nonino; the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in D minor and Ravel’s La Valse.

She also appeared at the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, New York. Reviewing her recital at the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in June 2008, David Ginsberg wrote in The Washington Post, “The five steely movements of Prokofiev’s Sarcasms, Op. 4, were unfailingly incisive and vital. Scriabin’s Fantasie in B Minor, Op. 28, was a luscious wash of color, infused with big swirls of sound. Her soon-to-be-released recording of the composer’s music on the Naxos label should be a dandy.”

In New York, Ms. Wang was presented in recital as part of the Prestige Series at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College of Music in New York. In April 2007, she made her orchestral debut at Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium performing the Schumann Piano Concerto and Ravel’s Concerto in G Major with the City Symphony under conductor George Manahan. Reviewing her May 2006 recital at Alice Tully Hall, longtime music critic Fred Kirshnit of The New York Sun praised Ms. Wang for her “robust, confident performance.”