In June 2005, at nineteen years of age, *Joyce Yang* was awarded the silver medal at the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The prize package included $20,000, three years of U.S. concert engagements, and a compact disc recording on the harmonia mundi usa label. The youngest of the Cliburn Competition’s participants, she was the recipient of both the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for the Best Performance of Chamber Music, as well as the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for the Best Performance of a New Work. Of her spectacular finish at one of the world’s most prestigious showcases for young talent, she told reporters, “I’m still dreaming.” There is no doubt that Joyce captured the hearts of all who heard her!
The dream continued this summer as Joyce Yang appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Center, the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival, the Aspen Symphony, and she opened the season of the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center. In November 2006, Joyce Yang makes her New York Philharmonic debut with Lorin Maazel in Avery Fisher Hall, preceded by concerts with them in Korea. Her 2006-2007 season also includes engagements with the symphonies of Houston, Indianapolis, Fort Worth, Colorado, Kansas City, Colorado Springs, and Orlando, as well as numerous recitals throughout North America and in Europe, including appearances at the Kennedy Center for the Washington Performing Arts Society and the Tonhalle in Zurich, Switzerland.
Joyce Yang continues to captivate audiences and colleagues with her warm and generous personality, combined with musicianship that belies her age. She has already scored personal triumphs on the Rising Star Series of the Ravinia and Gilmore Festivals, the Aspen Festival, and the La Jolla Music Society, as well as at the Chopin Festival in Duszniki, Poland and the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw.
Born in Seoul, Korea, Joyce received her first piano lessons at age four from her aunt. She quickly took to the instrument, which she received as a birthday present, and over the next few years won several national piano competitions in Korea. By age ten she had entered the Korean National Conservatory, and subsequently made a number of concerto and recital appearances in Seoul and Taejon. In 1997, Joyce moved to the United States to begin studies at the pre-college division of the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
During her first year at Juilliard, she won its Pre-College Division Concerto Competition, resulting in a performance of the Haydn Concerto in D major with the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra. In April 1999, she was invited to perform at a benefit concert with the Juilliard Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Winning at the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Competition led to a performance of the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Philadelphia Orchestra when she was just twelve.
Joyce Yang is featured in In the Heart of Music, the film documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Her debut disc distributed by harmonia mundi usa includes live performances of works by Bach, Liszt, Scarlatti, and the Australian composer Carl Vine. She currently resides in New York City where she attends the Juilliard School as a student of Dr. Yohaved Kaplinsky.
