Piano Recital with Claire Huangci (USA)

About the event

“If one looks for an overriding characteristic of Huangci's playing … one finds it in her concentration, her imaginative power, her fantasy and the resulting poetry of her interpretation.” (Thomas Schacher, Neue Zürcher Zeitung)

The young pianist Claire Huangci, winner of first prize and the Mozart Prize at the Concours Géza Anda 2018, captivates her audiences with “glittering virtuosity, assured shaping, wide-awake interaction and subtle sound dramaturgy” (Salzburger Nachrichten). Driven by an irrepressible spirit of enquiry, she demonstrates her versatility with an unusually broad repertoire ranging from Bach and Scarlatti through German and Russian Romanticism to Bernstein, Gulda and Corigliano.

In solo recitals and as a partner of international orchestras, Claire Huangci has performed in major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall New York, Suntory Hall Tokyo, the NCPA Beijing, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Gasteig Munich, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Franz Liszt Academy Budapest, as well as at renowned festivals including the Lucerne Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival and the Klavierfestival Ruhr. Orchestras such as the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the China Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and conductors such as Sir Roger Norrington, Eva Ollikainen, Mario Venzago, Cornelius Meister and Elim Chan have been among her valued partners.

Claire Huangci began her international career at the age of nine with concert appearances and competition successes. She received important impulses from her teachers Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia before moving to Arie Vardi in Hanover in 2007. Early in her career she attracted particular attention as an expressive Chopin interpreter, not least through first prizes at the Chopin competitions in Darmstadt and Miami (2009/2010). As the youngest participant, she also won 2nd prize at the International ARD Music Competition in 2011.

Following her debut CD of solo works by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and a double album of Scarlatti sonatas (German Record Critics' Award and “Editor's Choice” of Gramophone magazine), her much-praised recording of Chopin's Nocturnes was released in 2017 and the complete Préludes in 2018.

Biographies