Music on Thursdays
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Thursday
31st August 2023
12.30 lunchtime
Yuzhang Li
piano
Programme
to be announced
Concert duration approx: 40 minutes
Please donate to help fund these concerts at: cafdonate.cafonline.org/14455
Yuzhang Li
Chinese pianist Yuzhang Li became one of the ten semi-finalists in the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition.
She started her postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music with a full
scholarship in the same year. Recently, she became a medallist in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. As the first prize winner in the Futian Cup Piano Competition in China, she performed Beethoven;'s Piano Concerto No 4 with the Shenzhen Philharmonic and conductor Xieyang Chen, and was highly appreciated by Lang Lang.
With a natural wealth of musicality, Yuzhang began her music life at the age of four. At the age of fourteen, she debuted with a solo recital, in which she performed a bold repertoire - a full set of Étude Tableaux by Rachmaninoff. Carrying a strong capability, her other performances in Leatherhead and St Michael's Sittingbourne in UK, Yongsan Concert Hall in South Korea, Bechstein KONZERTFLÜGEL and the Harz Classix Music Festival in Germany, and People’s University, Sichuan Conservatory Concert Hall, Shenzhen Concert Hall, and HUAFA Performance Theatre in China.
Prizes and awards she garnered in competitions, including second prize in the “Grotrian” International Piano Competition, the Special Performance Award in the Wiesbaden International Piano Competition, first prize of the Seiler Cup Piano Competition, the Golden prize in Huanglong Piano Competition, and second prize in the Steinway Piano Competition, have also proved her to be a discernable musician.
Aside from the performances she has given and prizes she has won in competitions, she was also awarded the China National Scholarship and the “Tan XiaoWei” Scholarship, resulting from her excellent performance in both piano playing and academic study.
In 2013, Yuzhang started with Professor Jinsong Xian at the Xinghai Conservatory Affiliated Middle School, Guangzhou. In 2017, she was admitted by the best mark to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, studying with Professor Danwen Wei - one of the last two students of V Horowitz, and Jiajia Shi – a student of Gabriel Amiràs. In 2021, she started with
Professor Ian Fountain at the Royal Academy of Music.
She started her postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music with a full
scholarship in the same year. Recently, she became a medallist in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. As the first prize winner in the Futian Cup Piano Competition in China, she performed Beethoven;'s Piano Concerto No 4 with the Shenzhen Philharmonic and conductor Xieyang Chen, and was highly appreciated by Lang Lang.
With a natural wealth of musicality, Yuzhang began her music life at the age of four. At the age of fourteen, she debuted with a solo recital, in which she performed a bold repertoire - a full set of Étude Tableaux by Rachmaninoff. Carrying a strong capability, her other performances in Leatherhead and St Michael's Sittingbourne in UK, Yongsan Concert Hall in South Korea, Bechstein KONZERTFLÜGEL and the Harz Classix Music Festival in Germany, and People’s University, Sichuan Conservatory Concert Hall, Shenzhen Concert Hall, and HUAFA Performance Theatre in China.
Prizes and awards she garnered in competitions, including second prize in the “Grotrian” International Piano Competition, the Special Performance Award in the Wiesbaden International Piano Competition, first prize of the Seiler Cup Piano Competition, the Golden prize in Huanglong Piano Competition, and second prize in the Steinway Piano Competition, have also proved her to be a discernable musician.
Aside from the performances she has given and prizes she has won in competitions, she was also awarded the China National Scholarship and the “Tan XiaoWei” Scholarship, resulting from her excellent performance in both piano playing and academic study.
In 2013, Yuzhang started with Professor Jinsong Xian at the Xinghai Conservatory Affiliated Middle School, Guangzhou. In 2017, she was admitted by the best mark to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, studying with Professor Danwen Wei - one of the last two students of V Horowitz, and Jiajia Shi – a student of Gabriel Amiràs. In 2021, she started with
Professor Ian Fountain at the Royal Academy of Music.
Recordings of the works in today's concert
this section not yet updated
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Flute Quartet in D major K285 (arr CarmenCo)
1 Allegro • 2 Adagio • 3 Rondo
Ensemble Connect are performing in the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, Manhattan:
Flute Quartet in D major K285 (arr CarmenCo)
1 Allegro • 2 Adagio • 3 Rondo
Ensemble Connect are performing in the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, Manhattan:
Sir Edward William Elgar (1857-1934)
Sea Pictures Op 37 (1897-99) (arr CarmenCo)
Sea-Slumber Song (text: Roden Noel)
In Haven (Capri) (text: Caroline Alice Elgar, composer's wife)
Where Corals Lie (text: Richard Garnett)
Sea-Slumber Song is performed here by Niamh O'Sullivan, mezzo-soprano, and Chia-Lun Hsu, piano, at Munich's Hochschule für Musik und Theater.
In this instrumental version of In Haven (Capri) Julian Lloyd Webber plays cello, John Lenehan is at the piano.
We are going to make the potentially rash assumption that you are up to speed with popular Christmas music.
Here are some less frequently heard parts of the repertoire, beginning with Buxtehude's lovely In Dulci Jubilo, performed in St Peter's Lutheran Cathedral, Hamburg, by Catherina Witting, soprano, Tiina Zahn, alto, Dávid Csizmár, bass, with Katharina Wulf, violin, Verena Fischer-Zernin, violin 2, and Lukas Henke, directing from the organ.
Standing under the Great Octagon is the Choir of Ely Cathedral. They will help us to cover one of the ethnic minorities we so rarely consider. How will they do so? By singing While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night, to a great Yorkshire tune. Please enjoy this familiar melody and this wonderful choir and organ:
For the next item, let's stay IN a church, but not with churchy music. Here is Thomas Trotter's arrangement for organ of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. The organist in Waltham Abbey Church is Jonathan Lilley.
Here comes a lockdown special from our very own Jonathan Holmes, playing the Father Willis organ at St Mary's Ewell (on which he gives frequent recitals). It is Canadian composer Denis Bédard's Toccata on Il Est Né le Divin Enfant.
Georgi Muschel's Toccata from his Suite Ouzbèke builds to a proper bit of "chucking out music" - a less polite interpretation of the term "postlude". It does what is required quite nicely and fits well for Christmas.
The organist here is Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet, and the organ is in the church of St-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet Paris 5e. The instrument has had so many builders, rebuilders, and restorers that you are best watching the screen closely at the start if you want to know who has had a hand in it!
You are probably ready for a cup of tea by now. You should be able to get a table in this food court:
Previous concert
24 August 2023 - Thomas Ang, piano - click here
Next concert
7 September 2023 - Yeo Yat-Soon, harpsichord - click here
