by Jin Woo Cho

Joyce Yang is a gifted pianist who is gaining international fame as a rising star in
classical music. Starting to play piano at age four, she has won numerous
prestigious competitions including the Van Cilburn International Piano Competition,
in which she won a silver medal as the youngest participant ever to perform. Ever
since her debut, she has been touring around the world giving concerts, performing
with major orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York
Philharmonic. As a native of Stony Brook, the recital at the Staller Center Recital
Hall on February 8th was her first time to perform back home.

She opened up the recital with Brahms, playing a collection of Intermezzos
collectively referred to as Kalvierstuke Op. 119. Ms. Yang effectively conveyed the
romantic expressions of the pieces by successfully yet gracefully executing the
difficult chords and arpeggios, which adorned the melody.

After the applause from the audience, Ms. Yang took time to explain the following
piece she was about to perform due to the non-conventional style of the piece.
She briefly introduced the composer Carl Vine, who is well known for his
contemporary approach to classical music. She humorously warned the audience
that Vine’s Sonata would sound very mechanical and non-musical, which contrary
to the general notion. She explained that Vine attempted to express various sounds
we hear everyday in his 1990 Sonata, joking that it felt like thousands of ants were
crawling all over her body as she was playing this piece. 

Ms. Yang’s performance of the Vine Sonata was indeed very different from the
Brahms; the emphasis of extreme low bass and the sharp contrast of almost-
robotic broken chords and low octaves stood out prominently. Despite the different
taste of style, the audience nonetheless showed enthusiastic support for her
tremendous effort in performing this difficult and interesting piece.

After the intermission, Ms. Yang played a couple of sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti,
who was active in the 18th century. Scarlatti’s pieces sounded quite similar to
those of Mozart in terms of their bright textures and perky touches, which was a
relief from the tense and heavy overall feeling that prevailed in the previous piece.
Her last performance on the repertoire was Robert Schumann’s Carnaval Op. 9,
which is also a collection of smaller pieces named separately according to their
themes. Each piece featured somewhat different motives and structures, but they
all converged to the general theme of a carnival as the title says.

Ms. Yang’s encore was Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, which was an
excellent choice to close the recital due to its fleshy characteristics. She poured
everything she still had on the piece, which resulted in a brilliant execution of
virtuosity that is difficult to express in words. The recital ended with a standing
ovation from the audience, which proved to be a big success.

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