Whenever Yuja Wang makes music, her soul opens to reveal depths of understanding. Her pianism blends abundant power with exquisite lightness, scintillating dexterity with heart-melting lyricism, and crystal clarity with transcendent beauty, qualities combined in a mesmerizing process of artistic alchemy. She is widely recognized as one of the most important artists of her generation, both for her supreme musicianship and for her ability to captivate audiences of all ages.

Yuja’s prodigious virtuosity and technical control command critical appreciation; she is also regularly praised for the clarity of her musical insight, the freshness of her interpretations, and the charismatic power of her stage presence. She believes that technique should never be an end in itself, that it should always serve the cause of emotional expression and musical interpretation. Above all, she is devoted to cultivating and communicating her complete affinity with the works in her broad repertoire.

Yuja was born into a musical family in Beijing on February 10, 1987. She received her first piano lessons at the age of six and made rapid progress after she became a student at the Beijing Conservatory. Her musical and personal development gathered momentum in 1999 when she moved to Canada to join the Morningside Music summer program at Calgary’s Mount Royal College; she went on to become the youngest student to date at Mount Royal Conservatory. In 2002 she won the Aspen Music Festival’s concerto competition; she also enrolled to study with the distinguished concert pianist and teacher Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

By the time Yuja graduated from the Curtis Institute in May 2008, her professional career was already underway. She attracted media attention in Canada in 2005 following her debut with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, which prompted one newspaper to headline its review: “A star is born.” Her international breakthrough came in March 2007, when she stepped in to replace Martha Argerich as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since then, Yuja’s meteoric rise has taken place in company with many of the world’s leading orchestras and at the most prestigious concert venues. She has given concerto performances with such prominent conductors as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Lionel Bringuier, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville Marriner, Zubin Mehta, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Antonio Pappano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Pinchas Zukerman.

Yuja’s spontaneity and vision are reflected in her growing discography for Deutsche Grammophon. Since signing an exclusive contract with the yellow label in January 2009, she has recorded a series of critically acclaimed albums. Following the release in 2009 of Sonatas & Etudes, her solo debut recording, Gramophone named her its “Young Artist of the Year.” She received ECHO Klassik’s “Young Artist of the Year” award for her 2010 album, Transformation, a carefully constructed solo program of Brahms, Ravel, Scarlatti and Stravinsky. Her 2011 release of Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto and “Paganini Variations,” recorded with Abbado and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, received a Grammy® nomination for “Best Classical Instrumental Solo.” Fantasia, released in 2012, offers a collection of encore pieces by Albéniz, Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saëns, Scriabin, and others. This was followed by a live recording of Prokofiev’s Second and Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concertos with Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. Her latest Deutsche Grammophon title, Yuja Wang: Ravel, recorded with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and Bringuier, was released in October 2015.

Since making her solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2011, Yuja has returned to the venue every season, consistently attracting capacity audiences and prompting standing ovations. Recent career milestones include an extensive tour of Japan in 2013, complete with her recital debut at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall; an “Artist Portrait” series with the London Symphony Orchestra in 2013-14; an artistic residency with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich in 2014-15; and her concerto debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in May 2015. As a chamber musician, Yuja has developed partnerships with several other leading artists, notably Leonidas Kavakos, with whom she has toured and recorded Brahms’s complete violin sonatas.

Yuja Wang launches her 2015-16 season in partnership with the San Francisco Symphony and Tilson Thomas as part of the orchestra’s “European Festivals Tour,” performing concertos by Bartók and Beethoven at London’s BBC Proms, the Edinburgh, Rheingau, Lucerne, and Enescu festivals, and in Amsterdam, Luxembourg, and Paris. She will also perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on an Asian tour with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Gustavo Gimeno. Other highlights of 2015-16 include Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony with the New York Philharmonic and Salonen, and with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra under Dudamel, in Caracas and throughout Europe. In February 2016 Yuja is set to join Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra to perform Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto (“Jeunehomme”) and Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto during the orchestra’s 25th anniversary tour to the United States. She will also perform Mozart’s “Jeunehomme” in Munich and Paris for her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic, under Gergiev’s direction.