Friday, February 20, 2015

World Class Pianist Names To Get Familiar With

By Olivia Cross


If you play the piano, or any instrument for that matter, you will know how much time and effort it takes to become really good at it. It takes even more to become a professional, and to be recognized as a world class pianist is a huge feat that not many are able to accomplish in their careers. The honor of being called as such belongs to a few of many musicians, and these are some of those pianists that you should know about.

Yuja Wang was born in Beijing, China and she is 28 years old. She is the daughter of musical parents, with a dancer for a mother and a percussionist father. She started learning to play the piano at the age of six and studied at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music before entering the Morningside Music Bridge International Festival in Calgary, Canada at the age of 11, where she was the youngest of the students.

Yuja Wang had barely entered her 20s when she was already a performer of classical piano in recitals worldwide. She has won numerous awards and accolades in her time, including Aspen Music Festival's concerto competition and the Gilmore Young Artist award at the beginning of the millennium. Her record company is Deutsche Grammophon, where she is exclusively signed to a 5-disc deal.

Rebecca Penneys is American-born to Russian-Jewish parents in the mid forties. Her childhood was spent in L. A., where she started learning to play the piano when she was just three years old. When she was nine, she had her first solo recital and by the age of eleven, she was a Los Angeles Philharmonic soloist.

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.

Frantz thanks the teachers he had over the years for taking the time to hone his God-given talent and perfect his skill. He advises anyone wishing to learn the piano, or who would like their children to start taking lessons, to find the absolute best instructor possible from the very beginning. Albert Frantz is also a teacher and counts producers like Bosendorfer as clients for playing endorsements.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment