Yi-heng Yang
Yiheng Yang, piano and early keyboards
Pianist and fortepianist Yi-heng Yang has been described as an “exquisite collaborator (Opera News), “suberbly adept (Gramophone)” and noted for her “remarkable expressivity and technique (Early Music Magazine).”
Her work spans from collaborations on period instruments with visionary artists such as the Grammy award-winning tenor Karim Sulayman, in their acclaimed and timely album, “Where Only Stars Can Hear Us (Avie Records),” to groundbreaking and provocative explorations into Romantic and Classical performance practice with cellist Kate Bennett Wadsworth (Brahms Cello Sonatas, Deux-Elles), baroque violinist Abby Karr (Mendelssohn Violin Sonatas, Olde Focus), and harpsichordist Rebecca Cypess (“Sisters Face-to-Face” Acis). In May 2022, she released her first solo fortepiano album, “Free Spirits: early Romantic music on the Graf piano (Deux-Elles),” which is already receiving critical praise, including a 4-star rating by BBC Music Magazine. Of this recording on an original 19th c Graf piano, Anne E. Johnson of Classical Voice North America writes that “Yang’s performance of these early Romantic works on one of the best instruments from that era takes us as close to the original experience as we can ever hope to come.”
Yi-heng has appeared at Carnegie Hall, The Phillips Collection, Chatham Baroque, Columbus Early Music, Early Music of the Islands, The Boston Early Music Festival, The New York Philharmonic Ensembles Series at Merkin Hall,The Serenata of Santa Fe Series, Sunday Chatter Albuquerque, The Frederick Collection, The Finchcocks Collection, The Cobbe Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Apple Hill Chamber Music Festival, and the Utrecht Early Music Festival.
Yang holds a doctorate in piano from the Juilliard School, and studied there with Veda Kaplinksy, Robert McDonald, Julian Martin. She studied fortepiano with Stanley Hoogland at the Amsterdam Conservatory. She has received grants from The Mustard Seed Foundation’s Harvey Fellowship, and The Dutch Ministry of Culture’s Huygens Award. Yi-heng is on the faculty of The Juilliard School in the Precollege, College, and Historical Performance departments. She has also taught at The Mannes School of Music and Rutgers University, and given masterclasses at The Curtis Institute, New England Conservatory, and the University of Connecticut. She is creator and host of The Catskill Mountain Foundation’s International Fortepiano Salon Series, a popular live-streaming gathering of fortepiano enthusiasts and practitioners, which has reinvigorated and celebrated fortepiano performance and musical community during the Covid pandemic.
Upcoming events include recitals in Sarasota, Florida’s Music Archive and Steinway Society, recitals for the Boston Clavichord Society and curation and direction of students from the Historical Performance department at Juilliard for a concert entitled “The Art of Conversation: 18th and 19th century Viennese Chamber Music with Fortepiano.”