Yi-heng Yang
piano and historical keyboards
The RIVAA Gallery Concert Series was created in January 2024 by Yi-heng Yang. In the visually inspiring setting of Roosevelt Island’s art gallery RIVAA, this musical series is the only one of its kind offered to audiences in New York City with a specific emphasis on Classical and Romantic chamber repertoire played on historical instruments. The vision in creating these concerts was to share world-class music-making and creative collaboration between top historical performance artists and emerging young professional musicians, bringing the best of period performance to Roosevelt Island and New York City. In its first two seasons, the series has already presented 12 concerts. The upcoming third season, September 2025-April 2026, includes a series of 7 concerts, the "Superdovess" puppetry and music children’s concerts in the gallery and at PS 217, and 2 “Days of Music, Days of Rest” chamber music lounge events.
Highlights have included a Baroque music program in March 2024 with Max Zeugner, assistant principal bass of the New York Philharmonic, “Romantic Chamber Music Weekend (April 2024)” featuring chamber masterpieces by Schumann, Brahms and Emilie Mayer, with celebrated violinist Aisslinn Nosky, Concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society Yiheng Yang, fortepiano, Juilliard graduate student Eleanor Legault, violin and viola, Arnie Tanimoto, cello, a Roosevelt Island resident and faculty at Princeton University. Other programs included our inaugural January program of the music of Mozart, Telemann and Dussek, with students from the Juilliard School and Yi-heng Yang. “Echoes of the Sun King” in June 2024 was curated and performed by Arnie Tanimoto and Baroque flute player David Ross, both Roosevelt Island residents, and Tami Morse, leading harpsichordist and director of The Baroque Room in Minneapolis.
In the current concert season Fall 2024-Spring 2025, programs have included or will include performances by Juilliard violin faculty Cynthia Roberts, a fusion folk-fiddle classical concert with Berwick Fiddle Consort (November 2024), a program of the Piano Quartets of Fanny Mendelssohn and Brahms Piano Quartets (February 2024), and guests artists such as Leipzig Bach Competition First Prize winner Hilda Huang, on fortepiano (April 2025), plus a program featuring students from the Juilliard School (May 2025), and the Quodlibet Wind Ensemble (March 2025).
With each subsequent program, the RIVAA Gallery Concerts’ reputation for distinctive, excellent and joyful music-making continues to build. Audiences enjoy coming into the gallery, perusing the current exhibition from local NYC artists, being welcomed to sit and enjoy the live music, and make connections with one another.
The concerts have enhanced the activities of RIVAA Gallery, its host venue, as a cultural center which promotes public arts engagement, and have contributed to the sense of well-being and quality of life on Roosevelt Island. Concerts have fill the gallery, with anywhere between 50-90 people per event. One regular audience member said, “I've been enjoying the chamber music series that Yi-heng Yang has brought to RIVAA Gallery on Roosevelt Island. The curation has been extraordinary--even including a jazz flugelhorn artist to improv with a Baroque trio! My mind and musical appreciation has truly been expanded.”
RIVAA Gallery Concerts was recently awarded a grant by the NY Community Trust Roosevelt Island Public Purpose Fund for its upcoming third season, 2025-2026.
