Yuanfan Yang in Skipton

Not quite 2 weeks into Skipton life and time for my first concert courtesy of Skipton Music. I recognised Yuanfan Yang from his Leeds International Piano Competition entry - definitely a 'one to watch' name!

Arriving at Skipton Town Hall, I found that the main hall was pretty full. Definitely more people than a typical Darlington Piano Society concert. The hall has quite a high stage so there aren't really any bad seats.

In his brief speech to the crowd, Yuanfan referenced his previous concert here, 10 years ago!?! Yuanfan spoke with a good degree of confidence and humour.

The concert programme was as follows:

Liszt, La Vallée d'Obermann from Années de Pélerinage

Y. Yang, Ode to the Atlantic

Schumann, Carnaval Op. 9

Schubert, Klavierstücke - No. 1 in E flat from Drei Klavierstücke D. 946

P. Cashian, Landscape (1995)

Prokofiev, Sonata No. 7 in B flat, Op. 83

I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of a self-penned work and a recent composition in the programme. Yuanfan greeted the audience and briefly introduced his own piece, Ode to the Atlantic - a solo piano arrangement for a cello/piano piece he wrote whilst on a cruise with Julian Lloyd Webber. The calm/turbulence of a transatlantic voyage was evident. Harmonically quite 'pop' but nonetheless enjoyable to hear and Yuanfan clearly had a lot of fun writing and performing the piece.

Philip Cashian's piece, Landscape, was a little more difficult to fathom. Its sparse angularity was however in keeping with the subsequent Prokofiev sonata, which to my mind was Yuanfan's strongest performance of the evening. The sonata is one of Prokofiev's more well-known piano works, but nonetheless there remains a challenge to interpret it. Yuanfan had plenty of attitude and a lean sound in the first and third movements; in the second movement he brought out the song - a chorus of defiance in the face of doom.

Ecstatic applause from the audience at the end - and again after an encore of Liszt's La Campanella.

He might be young, but Yuanfan is most definitely one to watch. Engaging and clear - across all the pieces, he exhibited a good sound and shading balance, in control of the piano especially in louder passages (comparison to a few concerts in Darlington where performers occasionally lost a tiny bit of control of the dynamics). Well done!

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