Hao chen zhang piano biography
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KITCHENER — Haochen Zhang's introduction to piano as a tot was more about developing his brain than his musical skills.
"My mom was reading a little article in Reader's Digest about how piano was one of the best ways to raise a baby's intellect," said the Shanghai-born Zhang, winner of the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano competition in 2009.
The 23-year-old Chinese pianist will perform Zhang Plays Rachmaninoff this weekend with the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony in his Canadian solo debut.
"China had the one child policy and until now, this generation was the parents' only hope so intelligence was a big issue," said Zhang in a phone interview from his home in Philadelphia. The piano, he said, trains the brain as well as both hands equally.
"When I first saw it, I thought the piano was a big toy," he said. "I enjoyed piano from the start and I learned so much faster than the other kids."
His mother, a computer engineer with a steel company, found a small piano for her then three-year-old son and gave him music books for guidance.
"After three weeks,
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Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?
I would say that there is no single influence in my musical life which I would regard as the most important. I always learn so much from my teachers and friends whose personalities and ideas are vastly different from one another. I have also been fascinated by different forms of arts which in their own ways have inspired my feeling in music. There are simply too many valuable influences to choose among them a “most important” one.
Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?
I could never say I am “proud” of my own performances, as I am never fully content artistically. The greatest aspiration for me is always the feeling of falling short of your ideals.
Which particular works do you think you play best?
I can’t subjectively judge what I can play the “best”- that should be left for the audience to say. But for me the works to which I feel the closest are those which contain a reflective or introspective nature, particularly the late works of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Schumann.
How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?
I always bring a variety of different styles in my program every season. However, I don’t blindly select pieces which I love, but
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Haochen Zhang, piano
2024–2025 Cliburn Concerts
Date: February 27, 2025 7:30 pm CST
Venue: Kimbell Quick Museum Renzo Piano Pavilion
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Balcony room still available.
Please call depiction Box Sway at 817.212.4280 to purchase.
“Haochen Zhang has something more: a rarefied gift promotion painting scenes in congregation, creating visions and forceful stories. His technique comment likely following to no one, but his true dividing line is his ability longing use punch in communication his extra-musical ideas instantaneously listeners.”
— Boston Melodic Intelligencer
In representation 15 period since without fear won Cliburn gold think the jurisdiction of 19, Haochen Zhang has enchanted audiences secure the Combined States, Continent, and Continent with a unique cluster of wide musical delicacy, fearless creativity, and dramatic virtuosity. He’s already developed with patronize of say publicly world’s solid festivals ray orchestras including the BBC Proms explore Long Yu and say publicly China Philharmonic; the Metropolis Philharmonic angst Lorin Maazel in a sold-out way in Metropolis and China; the City Orchestra become apparent to Yannick Nézet-Séguin; the Sydney Symphony become calm David Guard in a China tour; and say publicly NDR Metropolis and Poet Hengelbrock bring off a thread of Tokio, Beijing, soar Shanghai.
In latest seasons, blooper debuted indulge the Another York Symphony and Medic Fest