Tag: Xuefei Yang

Xuefei Yang in Geelong in October!

Nicole Neal1 Comment

Time to get excited Australian guitarists! Chinese guitarist extraordinaire Xuefei Yang is headed to our southern shores in late September and early October for her Australian debut tour. Very exciting!

She’ll be kicking things off on 28th September at the Sydney Opera House with a solo recital before headed down to Melbourne for a star turn with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on 2nd and 3rd October at the revamped Hamer Hall. Xuefei and the MSO will also be heading to the West Gippsland Arts Centre, Warragul (4th October) and Frankston Arts Centre (6th October).

Xuefei will be making her Australian debut playing what is probably everyone’s favourite classical guitar concerto (it’s certainly a favourite of mine) – Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. She, along with the MSO, will also be playing the Australian premiere of the new classical guitar concerto by Chinese composer Tan Dun, composer of the music to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Xuefei Yang (Credit: Neil Muir)

And for those of us in Victoria we’re going to be in for an extra special treat. Following her appearances at the Sydney Opera House and with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Hamer Hall, Xuefei will be headed to Geelong to present a solo concert of works by Albeniz, Bach, Williams, de Falla, Rodrigo and Brouwer as well as traditional Chinese music.

The concert will be held on Tuesday 7th October at 8pm in Sacred Heart College’s exquisite chapel. A great reason to take the trip down to Geelong if ever there was!!

Tickets are now on sale from the college’s online shop. http://www.shcgeelong.catholic.edu.au/

For tickets to Xuefei’s concerts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra head to:  http://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/whats-on/classical-music/concerto-de-aranjuez

For a bit of a taste of what will be in store, here’s Xuefei playing the Adagio of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Barcelona Symphony. Enjoy!

Expanding your guitarist horizons – Xuefei Yang

Nicole Neal2 Comments

Here’s a fantastically talented young female guitarist from China and somewhat of a pioneer. Xuefei was the very first classical guitarist in China to enter a music school, the first ever Chinese student to be awarded a full international scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London and then the first to launch an international professional career. Nice work!

Xuefei was born in 1977 in Beijing and began studying guitar at the tender age of seven. Just three years later, at age ten, she began studying under Chairman of the China Classical Guitar Society, Chen Zhi. It was also at this time that she made her public debut at the China International Guitar Festival. Apparently, she impressed the Spanish Ambassador so much he immediately presented her with a top-notch concert guitar! And that wasn’t the only time a top-flight instrument was bestowed upon her – when John Williams visited Beijing in 1995 he was also so impressed with her that he actually gave his very own Smallman to her as a gift!

I first came across Xuefei Yang a couple of years ago with her recording of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez (which is a really fantastic interpretation and I invite you to check it out. She comes pretty bloody close to my all-time favourite version of this concerto by Carlos Bonnell). This recording also features the debut presentation of Stephen Goss’ Albeniz Concerto, which is also well worth a listen – taking many of Albeniz’s well-known themes and weaving into a fantastic guitar and orchestra concerto setting. It does feel perhaps a little “pastiche-y” perhaps in places, but an impressively grand, lush, full-on Romantic re-imagining of some of Albeniz’s works and, of course, fantastically delicious playing form Xuefei Yang.

Here are Xuefei and Stephen Goss talking about the work:

Check out some more of Xuefei’s playing……