Yang Jing

Yang Jing on the pipa is indeed a virtuoso of a Heifetz-like quality The Sunday Telegraph, London Yang Jing discovered her unique musical character by studying the ancient pieces of a long gone culture as well as contemporary music. Rooted in the centuries-old tradition of Chinese music, she builds upon a tremendous conglomeration of music history from East and West. These explorations at times result in musical poetry, at others in powerful, unheard-of sounds. After twelve years with the China National Orchestra, she initiated her career as a soloist across the world’s great concert halls: at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, she gave the premiere performance of Minoru Miki’s ‘Pipa Concerto’. At the ‘Last Night of the Proms’ in 1999, she presented the premiere performance of Julian Philip’s ‘Formal Introductions’ together with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under the baton of Grant Llewellyn. Together with the Tokyo Geidai Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Kotaro Sato and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Jeffrey Rink, she gave the premiere performance of Mo Fan’s pipa concerto ‘Ballad of the Eternal Sorrow’. On her concert tours throughout Europe, North America, and Asia, she has appeared at the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Barbican Centre in London, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Jerusalem Concert Hall in Israel, and the ‘Goldener Saal’ in Vienna. In his opera ‘Ai-en’, Minoru Miki erected a living monument to Yang Jing: ‘she emits sparks from her pipa—first in the orchestra, and later on stage—a great, magnificent, solo for which the entire story-line suddenly seems to come to a standstill’ (Opernwelt). At home with classical and contemporary repertoires in particular, Yang Jing demonstrates her versatility also in relation to jazz (Max Roach, Arnie Laurence, Pierre Favre, Christy Doran). Yang Jing has founded several ensembles, and writes compositions for them: ‘Qing Mei Jing Yue’, for example, the first quartet of Chinese instruments dedicates itself specifically to chamber music; the ‘Asia Ensemble’; ‘Different Song’; ‘First European Chinese Ensemble’ in which Chinese and European instruments perform together. Yang Jing is currently concentrating on the composition of new works. www.yangjingmusic.com