Two Worthing appearances for pianist Yi-Yang

International Interview Concert spokesman Richard Amey said: “In all five Worthing appearances one of the town’s most celebrated guest pianists Yi-Yang Chen will have made by the end of May 18, he has said not a word to the audience. No one will have asked him to. But a week later on May 25, in his sixth Worthing appearance, the man himself and the full width of his artistry will out, in conversation – at his own International Interview Concert, entitled ‘voices’.

“This long-anticipated return, with its Covid-delayed Interview Concert, means a big eight days for classical music fans. Yi-Yang won the 2018 Sussex International Piano Competition at Worthing, with its two solo rounds then Grand Final with Worthing Symphony Orchestra, when he played Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Then he played Saint-Saens’ Fifth Piano Concerto with WSO in 2019.

“Now, on Sunday May 18, with WSO and conductor John Gibbons (Assembly Hall 2.45pm) to close their season he’ll play Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto in a programme also comprising Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Delius Intermezzo from Fennimore and Gerda, and Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony.

“Then on Sunday May 25 (2.45pm), in his International Interview Concert at St Symphorian’s Durrington Hill, he’ll play more Beethoven. His great Waldstein Sonata heads a full programme of different solo piano music – including a world premiere – in this remarkable and disarmingly beautiful Grade II listed building, with its musical stained-glass windows to St Symphorian and St Cecilia, and warm colouring of cream, deep red and dark brown. This venue will prove its concert-space worth when Yi-Yang presents his full credentials in the rare, intimate and inclusive In-The-Round setting that is the Interview Concerts’ attractive trademark.”

St Symphorian’s Durrington Hill has wheelchair access, no parking charges anywhere, and soft unallocated seating. Tickets for WSO May 18 at www.wtm.uk and for Yi-Yang’s ‘voices’ Interview Concert May 25 via www.facebook.com/events/2683065265228086

“He is Taiwanese but Kansas University-based, where he coaches top young piano talent. His world is also of global concert and masterclass giving, competition judging, festival founding and curation, and commissioning international living composers through his special University scheme, then premiering their new work.

“His full content of music on May 25 will include Chopin’s Scherzo No 3 and Opus 17 Mazurkas Nos 1 and 4; Gershwin’s song ‘Embraceable You’ in Earl Wild’s virtuosic arrangement; an exhibition of fourths intervals by the Finnish Sibelian successor, Rautavaara. The audience, who get their own ‘Ask A Question’ spot, will also be invited to ‘Guess The Composer’ of an unnamed piece Yi-Yang will play, and to suggest a nickname to that Chopin Scherzo in ‘Give It A Title’.

“The world premiere at seaside Worthing will be of ‘Ocean Surface’, a remarkable textural image waterscape by an Icelander, Gulli Björnsson. There is also German composer Ingrid Stölzell’s ‘In Foreign Lands’, stimulated by Robert Schumann’s ‘Scenes From Childhood’, and premiered in April by Yi-Yang. A 10-minute documentary film about Stölzell will run before the concert starts (doors at 2.15). And a key to Yi-Yang’s competition victories at Worthing and Washington US, was his own composition, ‘In Memoriam Sendai: Japan, 11 March 2011’. He’ll perform it here – his personal reaction, inflected with Far Eastern tints, to the vast tragedy of the earthquake-sparked tsunami.

“Yi-Yang recorded these works for Champs Hill Records in December.”