Learning From Yuja Wang, Part One (August 6, 2025)

Pianist Yuja Wang interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 2014.

There can be no question that one of the greatest pianists on the musical scene today is Yuja Wang, and in many ways she is like no other pianist in the world.

Having grown up in a family where her mother was a dancer and her father a percussionist, she started studying the piano when she was six years old, and by twenty-one had signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon.

I watched her interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation prior to a performance with the London Symphony Orchestra in 2014 with great interest.

For all of us as classical musicians there is a great deal we can learn from her, so over the course of the next few posts I am going to explore the questions asked her by the interviewer and Wang’s answers to the questions, while offering some of my own comments as a pianist,

BBC: Where do you get your inspiration?

YW: I get lots of inspiration from reading books, watching movies, and shopping, as well as just enjoying life. Playing has taken me to places I would not have otherwise visited.

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