Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang joins Orchestra Iowa for two performances

One of Joyce Yang’s childhood toys remains her favorite toy. Her artistry, however, is anything but child’s play.

From her first piano lesson at age 4 with her aunt in her native South Korea, Yang, now 35, rocketed to international fame at age 19, when she won the silver medal at the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano competition, held in Fort Worth, Texas. She also took home awards for best chamber music and new work performances.

The youngest competitor, her artistic innocence vanished with those wins, launching her life and career on a new and almost overwhelming trajectory.

“It just gives you so many opportunities and pushes you out the door, and the world wants to hear you,” she said by phone from her home base in Birmingham, Ala., where her husband, Richard Cassarino, is assistant principal double bass player with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.

“You just get so much attention and everyone invites you to come play for them,” she said of the Van Cliburn medal. “So it's like kind of a shock overnight, because you actually are the same person you were a month before the competition, and suddenly it's like, ‘Oh, suddenly everyone wants to hear me because I got the silver medal?’

“It’s a confusing thought in the beginning and because a month ago, I could still be kind of like a kid and it was OK, but after the Cliburn, you are being compared to the greatest pianists that are alive and performing today. … All this expectation and attention can be very shocking. … You have to become an incredible artist overnight, in a way.”

All of the awards she’s continued to win, including a 2018 Grammy nomination, and more than a thousand debuts and appearances with leading orchestras around the world attest to her incredible artistry.

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Orchestra Iowa audiences in Cedar Rapids and Coralville will get to hear her triumphant return, performing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3 in D Minor.

Maestro Timothy Hankewich knew he wanted her back for more, after she wowed Orchestra Iowa audiences in 2018 with Rachmaninoff's “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.”

“Joyce is such an ebullient and warm person,” Hankewich said via email. “Last time she was here we got on like a house on fire. She’s terrific to hang out with. Her wit with my laugh is enough to clear any room. When she played the Rachmaninoff Paganini Variations four years ago, I knew right then and there that I needed to bring her back to perform this work. I know she is just going to hit it out of the park.”

The “Variations” is no easy feat, and this Rachmaninoff concerto is even harder.

“(It) strikes fear in the heart of most pianists,” Hankewich said. “It almost defies human capability to play. There are so many notes per square inch that it gives me a headache just to study the score.

“I spent my early career as a pianist,” he noted, “and I just despair whenever I think of this piece, because it is so head-and-shoulders above the technical demands required of most mortals. It truly takes an exceptional pianist to perform this work.

“Not only are the technical requirements of the work herculean, but finding an artist who can deliver a performance reliably when the chips are down is another matter entirely.

“And as a conductor, the piece also scares me to death. The speed at which the notes fly by are sometimes such a blur, that you might not really know if you’re together with the soloist until 20 measures down the line — it’s only then you can afford yourself a brief sigh of relief, before you’re into the fire once more. And I have the easy job!

“So, I would say that in addition to the sheer beauty of the work, witnessing a live performance is also akin to watching a music high-wire act without a net.”

Yang concurs.

“I think it takes a special trust from the orchestra to invite a pianist to come do it,” she said. “Usually it's not the first piece I play with an orchestra. It makes sense that when I was with Orchestra Iowa before we did the Paganini Rhapsody by Rachmaninoff, which is also very difficult, but it's shorter and it's much more of a rhapsodic piece.

“I have great memories from my first time around,” she added. “So I think maybe we are climbing the Mount Everest. … I could see last time (Hankewich) was so invested in the journey, invested in Rachmaninoff. It was like he knew every little nitty-gritty turns and twists in the piece, so this time around, I am very looking forward to taking that journey with him and the orchestra.”

That trip will be a two-way street.

“Joyce is one of my all-time favorite people,” Hankewich said. “Rarely does one get to hear a pianist of such range who is both muscular in her playing and can also turn a phrase in a way that will break your heart. Her approach to the instrument isn’t just about pyrotechnics, athleticism and flash. She has a rare sensitive substance to her playing that really distinguishes her from among other artists who I’ve worked with in my career.”

Her story

Yang’s incredible journey began during her childhood in Seoul, South Korea, where her father was a chemical engineer father and her mother was a microbiologist.

“I remember the piano being my favorite toy,” she said. “I do remember that that’s how it was introduced to me — not as a musical instrument, but something that I could play with. And if I behaved, then my aunt would teach me a song. … Playing the piano in the beginning had very little to do with music.”

By age 8 she was a serious music student, entering local competitions. The following year, came a personal epiphany.

“At 9, I remember the distinct moment when I was practicing Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, where I heard music for the first time,” she said. “I mean, this whole time I’ve been playing the piano, but I was not actually, I guess, listening. I was just playing.

“And then I realized how beautiful this one little passage was, and I couldn’t believe it. It was like I had earplugs on until that point. Suddenly I heard something. That was so special, and suddenly I was wanting to shape it and sing through it, like, how can I make this more beautiful, in experimenting with different touch and all that. So that was a significant, very private little moment I had at age 9.”

She said that like “other Korean kids,” she took lessons in piano, violin, English, art and ice skating, honing in on speed skating. At age 11, she moved to New York with her mother, who was on sabbatical for a year at Stony Brook, N.Y. Soon, Yang was enrolled in Juilliard’s pre-college program, where she eventually earned her undergraduate degree. At age 12, she made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, performing Prokofiev’s third piano concerto.

Music still had much to teach her.

“The first time I was truly moved by music was when I was 14 and listening to the Tchaikovsky symphony played by National Symphony in Washington, D.C. I had already been performing. I signed with management at age 13, and then at 14, I was doing these big-scale concerts.”

She played her concerto with the National Symphony in the first half of the concert, then sat in the audience in the second half, where she heard the Tchaikovsky symphony.

“I could not stop crying,” she said. “It was just the most glorious and overwhelming and like an outpour — someone was playing this directly for me, for me to remember all my experiences. I’m 14, but somehow everything made sense. I think that’s what great music does. When it resonates with you, it feels like it fits who you are — your life, your experiences perfectly. It reminds you of people. It reminds you of your memories.

“Something connected that day, and I thought, ‘Music is the most incredible force of nature, and I must dive deeper into this, so I can deliver this kind of incredible music for others, hopefully, and make them have the experience I did.’ ”

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