August 14, 2001
Tuesday, 2:30 PM at Keiter Center
Piano Master Class by
Mr. Yin Cheng-Zong

       

Program

Chopin Ballade in G Minor No.1, Op.23 Chopin
Kimberly Chen

Sonata Op.109, 3rd mvt Beethoven
Shu-Yuan Yang

Sonata No.7 in Bb Major, Op. 83 Prokofiev
John Hsiang Tu


Mr. Yin Cheng-Zong
, one of the world's leading pianists, was born on China's
"Piano Island" Gulangyu in Xiamen, Fujian Province. He gave his first recital
when he was nine years old. Three years later, he entered the Shanghai
Conservatory, and was later transferred to the Central Conservatory in
Beijing, where he earned his bachelor's degree. He then went to Russia and
graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1963. Mr. Yin was the Gold
Medallist of the World Youth Peace and Friendship Festival held in Vienna in
1959, and the second prize winner of the 1962 Tchaikovsky Competition in
Moscow, when he was only twenty years old. He was one of the four Chinese
musicians listed in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians published
in 1980.

Mr. Yin made his Carnegie Hall debut in New York City in 1983, and has been
back there four times as a soloist. The New York Times called him "China's
best pianist." Bernard Holland praised "… his absolutely beautiful command of
piano colors…" Mr. Yin traveled all over the world and has performed with
Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Claudio Abbado and the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra, Kiril Kondrashin and the Moscow Philharmonic
Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra,
in addition to his performance in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto,
and New York's Lincoln Center. His solos were featured in China's Central
television and the CBS Sunday Morning Show. He was a professor and the
artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Mr. Yin is not only a virtuoso interpreter of Western masters, he has also
composed some of the best-known piano pieces on his own. His piano expression
of traditional Beijing opera and of other classic Chinese music, together
with his contribution to the "Yellow River Concerto" made him a household
name in China. His recording of the latter won him a Gold Record Award.

Mr. Yin has released more than 20 records, including the All Chopin CD and
Debussy's 24 Preludes, soon to be followed by his Rachmaninov Concertos No.2
and No.3 in cooperation with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.


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Summer Music Festival