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Born in Edinburgh, pianist & composer Yuanfan Yang is a First Class Graduate of both the Royal Academy of Music, and the Royal College of Music in London, the latter of which he is now studying as a Scholar on the Artist Diploma course with Sofya Gulyak and Leon McCawley.

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Within just the past few months, Yuanfan won 1st Prize and Audience Prize of the Casagrande International Piano Competition in Italy (September 2022), the 2nd Prize in the Hong Kong International Piano Competition (October 2022), and most recently, 2nd Prize plus Special Prizes for Best Classical Sonata, Best Romantic Work and Best Work by Chopin in the First Ljubljana Festival International Piano Competition in Slovenia (March 2023), which culminated in a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ricardo Castro. 

 

Prior to this, Yuanfan achieved 1st Prizes in: the 15th Frechilla-Zuloaga International Piano Competition in Spain 2021, the Prix Animato Tarnow Competition 2018, and the Roma International Piano Competition 2018, Italy, as well as 1st Prize at the Cleveland International Young Artists Piano Competition in the USA in 2015, and 1st Prize of the 4th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar, Germany in 2014, in which he also won Special Prizes for Best Improvisation & Composition, and Best Interpretation of Works by Liszt. Yuanfan is also a fluent sight-reader, having been the champion of the ongoing Michael Abraham Sight-Reading Award six years in a row, ever since he joined Chetham’s. He has also won 1st Prizes in the UK Liszt Society International Piano Prize 2015, the Royal Academy of Music’s Lilian Davies Prize 2018 and Sterndale Bennett Prize 2015, and the 9th Grand Prix Interlaken Classics International Piano Competition 2016, and was a former Keyboard Category Winner and a Grand Finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition 2012. He is kindly being supported by Help Musicians UK, Talent Unlimited and the Munster Trust.

 

In 2019, Yuanfan was named as one of the winners of the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, as well as the Special Prize for Best British Contestant after his performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A keen chamber musician, Yuanfan was the recipient of the Royal Overseas League Collaborative Piano Prize 2020. 

 

The 2023 season sees Yuanfan make debuts for Brighton Festival, Beaminster Festival, St George’s Bristol, Inverness Piano Concerts, Milano Auditorium and several other concert halls across the UK and Italy.  

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Yuanfan has performed for many eminent festivals, music societies and key events throughout the UK, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and the US, and has performed concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Gershwin, Grieg, Mozart, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky with many leading orchestras including the Royal Northern Sinfonia, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Romanian Radio National Symphony Orchestra, the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Canton Symphony Orchestra in Cleveland, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Manchester Camerata. In 2022, Yuanfan was selected for the Tillett Trusts’ Debut Scheme.

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Yuanfan is also a versatile composer and an accomplished improviser. Most recently, his Piano Concerto No. 3 in Five Movements and solo piano piece ‘Petite Partita’ won 1st Prize and Gold Medal of the Rachmaninoff International Music Competition – composition category. October 2022 saw a concert at St John’s Smith Square in London devoted almost entirely to his own music, featuring the Berlin Metropolitan Orchestra and including the world premiere of selections from his new Piano Concerto No. 4, as well as movements from his Piano Concerto No. 3, some solo piano music and songs.

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His ‘Fantasy in G’ for piano was broadcast on BBC Two in 2007 and 2008, and his arrangement of ‘Scarborough Fair’ was shown on BBC Four in 2010. His piano composition ‘Waves’ won the Overall Award in the European Piano Teachers Association UK Composition Competition 2011, and was also one of the winners in the BBC Proms Young Composers Competition 2011. His ‘Haunted Bell’ won first prize in the Golden Key International Piano Composition Competition in 2012, and it was broadcast on BBC Four and BBC Radio Three. He was a finalist in the National Centre for Early Music Composers’ Award 2013, where his piece ‘Crushed Suites’ was premiered and recorded by the leading early music ensemble Florilegium. In 2016, his ‘Silhouettes’ for small ensemble and ‘axis’ for violin and piano were premiered in London, the latter of which was a prize-winner at the Royal Academy’s Alan Bush Composition Competition 2016. Yuanfan’s Piano Concerto No. 1 ‘The Wilderness’, scored for solo piano and full symphony orchestra and written at the age of seventeen, was premiered in Qianjiang, China and was subsequently performed in Manchester, London, Paris and Wuhan. In 2017 this concerto was chosen for substantial funding by the China National Arts Fund and subsequently funded eight public performances with the China National Orchestra of Theatre & Dance throughout several cities in China between 2017-2019. In September 2019, Yuanfan’s Piano Concerto No. 2 ‘The Peony Pavilion’ was premiered at the Greenwood Theatre in London with the Hornton Symphony Orchestra, with himself as the soloist.

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Yuanfan’s debut album Watercolour featuring an eclectic range of solo piano music alongside three of his own compositions was released on Orchid Classics to critical acclaim, including 4* from International Piano Magazine.

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Updated March 2023. Shorter biography available on request.

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To contact Yuanfan, please visit the 'Contact' page.