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Gualala Arts
Promoting public interest and participation in the arts since 1961.
Archive of past events: 2004 through 2014
Yang Jing Shizuka will be appearing at the Gualala Arts Center on March 11, 2012, through the Global Harmony Series.
Rooted in the millennium-old tradition of Chinese music, she builds on a vast amalgam of musical history from the East and West. The consequences of this are sometimes musical poetry, sometimes powerful unheard-of sounds. Her concerts in various forms, solo, concerto, chamber or improvisation concerts can be heard in the major music halls around the globe. Miss Yang performed the "Pipa Concerto" with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra and under the same conductor Kazuhiro Koizumi with the Osaka Century Orchestra; the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra under Taijiro Iimori; the China Philharmonic Orchestra under Yang Yang; the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra under Samuel Wong; and the Orchestra Asia conducted by Park Bum Hoon, among others. In the autumn of 2004 the Zurich Chamber Orchestra engaged her for a series of performances of the chamber orchestra version of this concerto. After twelve years with the China National Orchestra her solo career brought her to the music stages of the world: At the Suntory Hall in Tokyo she premiered Minoru Miki's "Pipa Concerto" with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Naoto Ohtomo in 1999. On her concert tours throughout Europe, North America and Asia she also performed in venues like the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Barbican Centre in London, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Jerusalem Concert Hall in Israel and the Golden Hall in Vienna.
- Minoru Miki in Tokushima News In 1996 she initiated China's first female quartet "Qing Mei Jing Yue," composed and commissioned music pieces and produced the first Chinese instrumental quartet album "Evening Poem." With the Tokyo Yui Ensemble she won the Special Prize at the 2003 International Chamber Music Competition and Festa in Osaka. Since 2002 she acts as the musical director of the "Asia Ensemble" based in Tokyo. Her works "Nine Jade Chains" and "Disclosure" each won both the composition as well as the performance prizes in the "Shanghai Spring Music Festival" in 1986, an achievement unmatched before or after. Her solo work "Dance along the Old Silk Road" again won both first prizes in the National Chamber Music Competition in 1993. This very composition was chosen by the jury as a competition piece for the national pipa competition in 2004. Her compositions were published simultaneously on a solo CD and DVD with the same name and in print (Hong Kong 2003). "In these last twenty extraordinary years of China's music development Yang Jing has marked her undoubted position as a leading soloist and composer," says Li Xi'An of Beijing, China.
The Gualala Arts Center, located at 46501 Old State Highway in Gualala, CA,
Serving the coastal communities of northern Sonoma & southern Mendocino Counties.
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Bursting with creativity, pipa virtuoso and composer Yang Jing celebrates the coming of a new era in music. Miss Yang found her distinctive musical character through studies of the ancient pieces of an ancient culture and the most contemporary music of the world.
She played my difficult concerto with not only highly controlled technique but also true musicality. Her solo pieces can be composed only by an excellent performer who knows the instrument very well - I always said that Yang Jing is a genius - but now I have to add: she is a miracle!