Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Joyce Yang Receives 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant






Four Avery Fisher Career Grants Awarded for 2010


On April 28th at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts,

Nathan Leventhal, the Program's Chairman, Charles Avery Fisher and Nancy Fisher

announced four 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipients:


David Aaron Carpenter, violist; Kirill Gerstein, pianist;

Yuja Wang, pianist; Joyce Yang, pianist


The Avery Fisher Artist Program, established by the late Avery Fisher as part of a major gift to Lincoln Center in 1974, serves as a monument to Mr. Fisher’s philanthropy and love of music, with the Career Grants in particular exemplifying his devotion to helping young artists. Since the first Career Grants were given in 1976, 118 have been awarded (including this year’s grants), and all recipients are currently working musicians. Identified early in their careers, among former Career Grant recipients are Carter Brey, James Ehnes, Leila Josefowicz, Jeffrey Kahane, and Edgar Meyer.


Festivities were held at Lincoln Center’s Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse for an invited audience. This year’s announcement, made by the Program’s Chairman Nathan Leventhal, along with Charles Avery Fisher and Nancy Fisher (children of the late Avery Fisher), and performances by three of the four recipients were taped for broadcast by Classical 105.9 WQXR ~ FM, with host Robert Sherman, to be aired on Wednesday, May 12th, from 9 - 10 pm. The fourth recipient, Kirill Gerstein, was unable to participate due to his performance schedule. The 2010 awards mark the 31st time WQXR has broadcast these festivities, having been a broadcast partner since the first Career Grants were awarded in 1976. This year, WNET SundayArts will also be featuring the 2010 recipients.


Under the banner of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Avery Fisher Artist Program has launched a new website as of March 2009. Information about the Program (Avery Fisher Prize and Career Grants), is available online at www.averyfisherartistprogram.org. Links to today’s 2010 Career Grant performances, as well as select past recipients’ Career Grant ceremony performances, are also available on this website.


Avery Fisher Career Grants of the Avery Fisher Artist Program are designed to give professional assistance and recognition to talented instrumentalists as well as chamber ensembles who the Recommendation Board and Executive Committee of the Avery Fisher Artist Program believe to have great potential for major careers. The award stipend is $25,000. This amount is made available to each recipient, to be used for specific needs in furthering a career. Recognizing the need for video in a young career, the Avery Fisher Artist Program, with the aid of Live From Lincoln Center’s Executive Producer John Goberman, provides recipients with an unrestricted DVD of the day’s performance to aid them in publicizing their work.


Up to five Avery Fisher Career Grants may be given each year with recipients being U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents. Recipients are nominated by the Program's Recommendation Board, which comprises nationally known instrumentalists, conductors, composers, music educators, managers and presenters. Final selections are made by the Executive Committee, whose members are: Emanuel Ax, pianist; David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Henry Fogel, Dean, Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University; Anthony Fogg, Artistic Administrator, Boston Symphony Orchestra; Pamela Frank, violinist; Ara Guzelimian, Provost and Dean, The Juilliard School; Nathan Leventhal, Chairman, Avery Fisher Artist Program; Reynold Levy, President, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; Yo-Yo Ma, cellist; Zarin Mehta, President and Executive Director, New York Philharmonic; Jane S. Moss, Vice President, Programming, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; and Joseph W. Polisi, President, The Juilliard School. Mrs. Avery Fisher, Charles Avery Fisher and Nancy Fisher are advisors to the Executive Committee. The Program periodically also awards the Avery Fisher Prize. The Avery Fisher Artist Program is grateful to Lincoln Center, Inc., and its president Reynold Levy for continued support.
M.L. FALCONE, Public Relations
155 West 68th Street, Ste. 1114
New York, NY 10023
TEL: (212) 580-4302
FAX: (212) 787-9638
E-Mail: MLFPR@mlfpr.com

Friday, April 16, 2010

Joyce Yang Plays L.A. with Busy Summer Ahead



Joyce YangPianist Joyce Yang made headlines in 2005 as the youngest silver medalist in the history of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The 19-year-old also swept two additional awards, for best performance of a chamber work and best performance of a new work. Now 23, Yang says she's "having a ball" performing Beethoven, Bernstein, the big Romantics, and more as she "continues to dazzle audiences with her clarity and breadth of style" (Duluth News Tribune, 1/15/10).

Yang returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic this week for Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with conductor Edo de Waart. Her summer includes re-engagements at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony (with James Conlon in Bernstein's Age of Anxiety) and Aspen Music Festival (Tchaikovsky with Leonard Slatkin and a recital evening), as well as her debut in July with the San Francisco Symphony under Alondra de la Parra playing "Rach Three".

"She's been a Performance Today favorite ever since her amazing interview and performance in our studios right after the 2005 Cliburn Competition," writes host Fred Child. "Joyce joined me in the studio again this past November and played highlights from Schumann's Carnaval. (And we have the Frederic Chopin Society performance of the same, complete.) Her performance was so strong, and her comments were so good, we plan to make that a centerpiece of our Schumann 200 coverage in June." Stay tuned!

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