What can we learn from Yuja Wang?
It is not easy to define the sense of spectacle in classical music. Precision and speed are always a thing of wonder, yes, but the musician cannot leave behind the act of performing, of giving a character to the interpretation. Yuja Wang knows this very well, and it shows every time she sits in front of her piano.
During an interview with Los Angeles Times in 2017, she was asked about what alternative career she would have picked if she wasn’t a prodigy pianist. Her answer was: “For me, playing music is about transporting to another way of life, another way of being. An actress does that.” With that perspective, you can see the character she plays live; with the thrill of spectacle running in her fingers, her deliberated fashion choices that infuse a Hollywood glam flavour to the stage, and her empathetic approach to her repertoire.
Her brilliant and inspiring career surely comes as motivation to find our own character on stage and play its role in a musical...