Monday, 2 March 2015

World Class Pianist Names To Know

By Olivia Cross


The piano is an instrument that requires many years of hard work and dedication to master. To be rated as a world class pianist is a huge honor, and very few of the numerous musicians world wide get to experience such a title. These are some of the names to know when it comes to such a rating.

Yuja Wang is a twenty-eight-year-old pianist from Beijing in China. Her mother was once a dancer and her father a percussionist, making her background and upbringing and truly musical one. She was introduced to the piano at the age of 6 years old and was a student at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She was the youngest entrant in the Music Bridge International Festival in Canada when she turned 11.

By the time she had entered her twenties, Yuja Wang was already performing classical piano to audiences around the world. She is the winner of a number of prizes and awards. These include the concerto competition at the Aspen Music Festival in 2002 and the Gilmore Young Artist award in 2003. She is currently signed to Deutsche Grammophon with an exclusive five-disc contract.

Born to Russian and Jewish parents in Los Angeles in nineteen forty-six, Rebecca Penneys began her journey with piano from an early age. She started learning when she was just 3 years old. By the time she was 9, she had already performed in her first solo recital and became a soloist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the age of 11.

In the mid 60s, Penneys entered the International Chopin Competition in Poland, and she was the competition youngest ever entrant. The same event eventually created an award in her honor, called the Special Critics' Prize. Penneys performs and teaches, particularly in summer festivals.

Rebecca Penneys has been teaching at the Eastman School of Music since 1980. She is recognized for the Motion and Emotion keyboard technique, which focuses on the individual performance of each pianist. She also teaches at the Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival, and many of her students have gone on to win prizes internationally and teach on an international level.

Albert Frantz only really started playing the piano when he was seventeen, which is quite astonishing. Earlier lessons in childhood proved futile and his then piano teacher told his mother she would be better off throwing away all her money. One of his greatest achievements to date is being the first person in over 10 years to win a Fulbright scholarship, which he used to study in Vienna.

Albert Frantz says that all of his success in piano comes from not only his natural ability, but also the wonderful teachers who have taken the time to perfect his skill over the years. In fact, he strongly advises all those wishing to learn to play to really try to find the best teacher available. Frantz performs and is also a teacher of the instruments. He has played endorsements as well for producers like Bosendorfer.




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