Close Encounter with Pianist Vincent Yang
Musical Merit Foundation winner in 2009

SHUO VINCENT YANG, piano

Born in Bejing, China, Shuo Vincent Yang and his parents immigrated to Canada when he was four years old. He began taking piano lessons at seven and went on to win numerous local, provincial and national competitions. In the summer of 2007, Vincent and his family moved to San Diego, where he attended Torrey Pines High School and continued his studies as a private student of Kevin Fitzgerald, professor of piano and keyboard collaborative arts at USC. Vincent is currently in his second year of study at the Thornton School of Music at USC on a scholarship as a piano performance major. His other principal teachers have included Hsu Kwan Zhi, Lan Hua, Evangline Hung and Tomasz Aleksander. In January 2009, Vincent made his orchestral debut performing the Grieg A minor Piano Concerto with the Torrance Symphony.

A previous Musical Merit Foundation prize winner in 2009, Vincent received the fifth prize at the Los Angeles Liszt International Piano Competition in 2008 and has won prizes with the Glendale Piano Competition, William Grant Still Competition, the 2008 Torrance Symphony Concerto Competition, the Bach Festival MTAC Major Works, MTAC of San Diego Concerto Competition, Cypress Sonata Competition, and the Mu Phi Epsilon Music Fraternity Competition. He is also a Young Musician Foundation Scholar as well as a Leni Fe Bland Scholar. He was semi-finalist in the Oberlin International Piano Competition and California International Young Artists Piano Competition where he won a full tuition scholarship to the Viana do Costello Musical Festival in Portugal.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS UPDATE

Vincent Yang, pianist, currently a second year student at the University of Southern California, gave five alluring concerts to schoolchildren from January 11th to January 14th, 2011 as part of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. Programs took place at the following schools:

January 11, 2011
San Elijo Middle School
San Marcos, CA

January 12, 2011
Ada Harris Elementary School
Cardiff by the Sea, CA

January 12, 2011
Lincoln High School
San Diego, CA

January 13, 2011
Aviara Oaks Middle School
Carlsbad, CA

January 14, 2011
Oak Park Music Conservatory
San Diego, CA

Vincent’s program included piano music by Beethoven, Liszt, and Debussy, plus his own elaborate arrangement of “Chopsticks.” The children were thrilled to hear him play and during the question and answer period asked many very poignant questions. The pianos in the schools were a bit of a challenge, as the quality varied from vibrant grand pianos to questionably-tuned uprights. Nevertheless, Vincent played with verve and earnestness, which created a compelling series of programs.