Piano Recital Claire Huangci

About the event

Claire Huangci, the young American pianist of Chinese descent, has established herself as a much-noticed musician and left the role of celebrated child prodigy behind. She captivates her audiences with “glittering virtuosity, sovereign shaping, wide-awake interaction and subtle sound dramaturgy” (Salzburger Nachrichten).

At the age of 9 Claire Huangci began an international career with scholarships, concert appearances and prizes – most recently she was the youngest participant to receive second prize at the International ARD Music Competition (2011). She received important impulses from her teachers Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, before moving in 2007 to Arie Vardi at the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover, whom she has assisted in teaching since completing her studies.

At the beginning of her career Claire Huangci attracted attention above all as an expressive Chopin interpreter: she won first prize at the International Chopin Competition in Darmstadt in 2009 and at the Chopin Competition in Miami in 2010. Today she demonstrates her great versatility with an unusually broad repertoire. In solo recitals and as a partner of international orchestras such as the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the China Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Vancouver, Santa Fe and Moscow Radio Symphony orchestras, she has performed in internationally important halls such as Carnegie Hall, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Gasteig Munich, the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Salle Cortot, and at festivals such as Kissinger Sommer, the Verbier Festival, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, the Rheingau Music Festival and the Schwetzingen Festival. The highlight of the 2017/18 season is her solo debut at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.

After her debut CD with solo works by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, her second solo album was released by Berlin Classics in 2015 with 39 sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. The recording received the German Record Critics' Award and was named “Editor's Choice” by Gramophone magazine. In spring 2017 her widely praised recording of Chopin's Nocturnes was released: “Do we need yet another recording of Chopin's Nocturnes? Actually no! But anyone who hears Claire Huangci's brand-new double CD says: yes!” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Biographies