Pianist performs Saturday at Clayton Center
by Jim Green, Clayton News-Star (09/30/09)
Classical pianist Xiayin Wang makes her North Carolina début when she performs in recital at The Clayton Center on Saturday at 8 p.m.
Wang, whose first name is pronounced Sya-een, will perform selections from her recent CD, “Scriabin Piano Music,” which débuted on Billboard’s classical album chart. The program will also include music by Haydn, Chopin, Ravel, Gershwin and Piazzolla.
“I love to play Russian and French music,” Wang said. “Scriabin [a Russian composer] speaks to me very well. I like passion and fl are in someone’s playing, and this music brings out that side of me.”
Wang began playing piano at the age of 5 in China. Her father has played the two-string fiddle, known here as the Chinese violin, for 50 years.
“My parents tell me when I was in kindergarten, there were music classes where the kids would sing and the teachers would accompany them on piano,” Wang said. “The teachers said I would stay after class and try to imitate what they just did. They told my parents to consider lessons for me.”
Wang completed studies at the Shanghai Conservatory and garnered numerous first-place awards and special honors. She performed with many of China’s leading orchestras and in the country’s most prestigious concert halls.
She came 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 pursued studies at the Manhattan School of Music and won the school’s Eisenberg Concerto Competition in 2002 as well as the Roy M. Rubenstein Award.
Wang holds bachelor’s, master’s and professional studies degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and has had several memorable performances since coming to the United States.
She has performed the new Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, at the Prestige Series at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York and has released three CDs since 2007. Though she is a classical pianist who has performed and recorded everything from Brahms, Schumann, Mozart, Bach to Gershwin, Ravel and Scriabin, Wang wants to incorporate more styles into her playing.
“I have done some crossover styles,” she said. “But I want to always grow and learn. I listen to recordings of many different pianists from old times to modern times. For one to become a distinguished and individual artist and musician, you should develop your own style.”
Tickets for the performance are $20 and can be purchased by calling The Clayton Center box offi ce at 553-1737, going online at www.theclaytoncenter.com or visiting the box office in person from 10 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday.