Tuesday, February 24, 2015

World Class Pianist Names To Know

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 comes from Beijing, China and at twenty-eight, she has accomplished a lot. She comes from a background of music, as her mother used to dance and her father played percussion. She began learning the piano when she was 6 and learned to play at the Central Conservatory of Music in her birthplace. When she was 11, she was actually the youngest person to enter Calgary's Music Bridge International Festival.

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 was born in America in 1946 to Russian and Jewish parentage. She spent her childhood in Los Angeles and began playing the piano at the age of three. At just nine years old, she performed in a solo recital and was a soloist at the age of eleven for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

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.

For almost thirty-five years, Penneys has been a teacher at the Eastman School of Music. She is particularly recognized for teaching the keyboard technique known as Motion and Emotion, which is a focused method of improving a pianist's individual performance. She is a teacher at the Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival, and a lot of her students from this festival and elsewhere are international award-winning pianists and teachers in their own rights.

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.

Albert Frantz says that all of his success in piano comes from not only his natural ability, but also the wonderful teachers who have taken the time to perfect his skill over the years. In fact, he strongly advises all those wishing to learn to play to really try to find the best teacher available. Frantz performs and is also a teacher of the instruments. He has played endorsements as well for producers like Bosendorfer.




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