Artist Biographies

Joshua Weilerstein

guest conductor

Joshua Weilerstein enjoys a flourishing guest conducting career across the globe and has forged close relationships with many of the world’s finest orchestras and soloists. With a repertoire that spans from the Renaissance era to the music of today, he combines a deep love for canonical masterpieces alongside a passionate commitment to uncovering the works of under-represented composers such as Pavel Haas, William Grant Still, William Levi Dawson, and Ethel Smyth, among others. He is also a tireless advocate for the music of today, championing the works of Caroline Shaw, Jörg Widmann, Derrick Skye, Christopher Rouse, and more. In October 2022, Weilerstein was announced as the new Chief Conductor of Denmark’s Aalborg Symphony Orchestra from the 23/24 season.

Highlights of Weilerstein’s 22/23 season include debuts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and RTVE Symphony (Madrid); and return engagements with the Indianapolis Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Florida Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Aalborg Symphony, Swedish Chamber, Netherlands Philharmonic orchestras, Orchestre national de Belgique, and Orchestre national de Lille, among others. He will also return to the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, with whom he was Artistic Director from 2015-2021.

In recent seasons, Weilerstein’s guest engagements have included concerts with the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic; and in Europe with the Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Tonhalle Zurich, NDR Hannover, and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. During his time as Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Weilerstein was instrumental in expanding the orchestra’s repertoire and together they released critically acclaimed recordings of

music by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Smyth, and Ives along with a complete Beethoven symphony cycle on DVD; they also toured throughout Europe with soloists such as Juan Diego Florez, Christian Tetzlaff, and Albrecht Mayer.

Weilerstein won both the First Prize and the Audience Prize at the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen in 2009, and was subsequently appointed Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, where he served from 2012-2015. In 21/22 he became the Music Director of Phoenix, a dynamic and ambitious orchestra in Boston devoted to the presentation of classical music concerts in accessible and unforgettable ways and to the promotion of music by composers whose works have been unjustly overlooked.

Weilerstein hosts a wildly successful classical music podcast called “Sticky Notes” for music lovers and newcomers alike, with over two million downloads in 165 countries.

Joyce Yang

piano

Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism, and interpretive sensitivity.

In solo recitals, Yang’s innovative program has been praised as “extraordinary” and “kaleidoscopic” (LA Times). She has performed at New York City’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Chicago’s Symphony Hall, Zurich’s Tonhalle, and all throughout Australia on a recital tour presented by Musica Viva.

As an avid chamber musician, Yang has collaborated with the Takács Quartet for Dvořák — part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series — and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with members of the Emerson String Quartet at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Yang has fostered an enduring partnership with the Alexander String Quartet and together released three celebrated recordings under Foghorn Classics.

In 2020, Yang released her tenth album, performing Jonathan Leshnoff’s Piano Concerto with the Kansas City Symphony. As a champion of new music, Yang has also recorded the World Premiere of Michael Torke’s Piano Concerto with Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller. Yang’s wide-ranging discography also includes two celebrated solo discs, Collage and Wild Dreams, where she “demonstrated impressive gifts” (New York Times). She also released a live-performance recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Denmark’s Odense Symphony Orchestra, which International Record Review called “hugely enjoyable, beautifully shaped … a performance that marks her out as an enormous talent.”

In recent years, Yang has focused on promoting creative ways to introduce classical music to new audiences. She served as the Guest Artistic Director for the Laguna Beach

Music Festival in California, curating concerts that explore the “art-inspires-art” concept – highlighting the relationship between music and dance while simultaneously curating outreach activities to young students. Yang’s collaboration with the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet of Half/Cut/Split — a “witty, brilliant exploration of Robert Schumann’s Carnaval” (The Santa Fe New Mexican) choreographed by Jorma Elo — was a marriage between music and dance to illuminate the ingenuity of Schumann’s musical language. The group toured nationwide, including five performances at the Joyce Theater in New York.

In the 2021/2022 season, Yang shared her versatile repertoire in over 40 cities in the US and Europe. After returning to the stage in summer performances at Wolf Trap with the National Symphony Orchestra, Grant Park Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Sun Valley Music Festival, Yang appeared with the New World Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Tucson Symphony, and Rhode Island Philharmonic, among many others. She also premiered Reinaldo Moya’s Piano Concerto with Bangor Symphony, which draws inspiration from Venezuelen artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. In recital, she presented daring programs of Bach, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Kernis as well as collaborated with the Takacs Quartet.

Born in 1986 in Seoul, South Korea, Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at the age of four. She quickly took to the instrument, which she received as a birthday present. Over the next few years, she won several national piano competitions in her native country. By the age of ten, she had entered the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and went on to make a number of concerto and recital appearances in Seoul and Daejeon. In 1997, Yang moved to the United States to begin studies at the precollege division of the Juilliard School with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky. She graduated from Juilliard with special honor as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize, and in 2011 she won its 30th Annual William A. Petschek Piano Recital Award.

Yang appears in the film In the Heart of Music, a documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She is a Steinway artist.