Zhang, Yuncong

Violinist from Changchun, China, who attended the Central Conservatory of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She also participated in the Blossom Music Festival, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar, in 2003 and 2004. Her teachers have included Glenn Dicterow, Lisa Kim, Marilyn McDonald, and Sylvia Rosenberg.

In 2004, her playing garnered a prize at the Kingsville International Competition, which was held in Texas. She achieved similar results in 2005 at the Tuesday Musical Competition.

On 25^th February 2005, she was one of several musicians to appear at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in a program that comprised Bela Bartok’s “String Quartet No. 4”, Frederic Chopin’s “Andante spianato and Grand polonaise brillante”, Jean Hubay’s “Carmen, Fantasie Brillante, Op. 3, No. 3”, Bohuslav Martinu’s “Concerto for Oboe”, and highlights from Hugo Wolf’s “Morike-Lieder”.

She came in second at the Camerata Orchestra Solo Violin Competition in March 2006 at Indiana University, where she performed “Violin Concerto No. 1” by Dmitri Shostakovich and “Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor” by Johann Sebastian Bach.

On 1^st July 2006, she and pianist Orli Shaham performed George Gershwin’s “Three Preludes for Violin and Piano” at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado.

She and cellist Stephen Fang, flautist Nadine Asin and pianist Rita Sloan interpreted Ned Rorem’s “Bright Music” at Harris Concert Hall on 29^th July 2006.

Before the year was out, the group she founded, the Echoi Contemporary Music Sextet, had made their debut at Carnegie Hall. They performed “Arpege” by Franco Donatoni at the Kennedy Center on 23^rd May 2007.

On 1^st May 2009, they appeared at Conrad Prebys Music Center in La Jolla, California, as part of the UCSD Festival of New Music. Their recital included George Aperghis’s “Gigante Golia”, Paolo Cavallone’s “Scendero a patti”, Nicolas Deyoe’s “Forced Through”, Alexandre Lunsqui’s “Glaes”, Lewis Nielson’s “…the crisis of conscience when making war but the need is to make love (and vice versa)…”, and Ashley Pure’s “Susurrus”.

Yuncong won a bronze trophy and $1,000 at the Chinese International Violin Competition on 31^st August 2009. In January 2010, she became a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

She and her fellow BSO musicians teamed up with clarinetist Masaharu Yamamoto and pianist Emanuel Ax for an all-Mozart mini-tour that featured the master’s “Quartet in F major, K. 370”, “Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A major, K. 581” and “Quintet for Piano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon in E flat major, K. 370”.

In May 2010, the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus recorded a CD entitled The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers. The patriotic album also includes the narrative talents of Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, and Robert De Niro.

Roberto Abbado stood in for an ailing James Levine at Prudential Hall on 18^th March 2011 when the BSO offered up Bartok’s “Piano Concerto No. 3” with soloist Peter Serkin, Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67”, and Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Symphony No. 93 in D”.

Sources:

Zhang, Yuncong

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