Claire Huangci - Beethoven/Liszt: Pastorale (Symphony No. 6 for Piano Solo) (2021)

The young American pianist Claire Huangci, winner of the first prize and the Mozart prize at the 2018 Geza Anda Competition, continuously captivates audiences with her “radiant virtuosity, artistic sensitivity, keen interactive sense and subtle auditory dramaturgy” (Salzburger Nachrichten). With an irrepressible curiosity and penchant for unusual repertoire, she proves her versatility with a wide range in repertoire spanning from Bach and Scarlatti, to Bernstein, Gulda, and Corigliano.

In solo recitals and with international orchestras, Claire has appeared in some of the most prestigious halls such as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall Tokyo, NCPA Beijing, Paris Philharmonie, Munich Gasteig, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Salzburg Festspielhaus, and the Budapest Franc Liszt Akademie. She is a welcome guest in renowned festivals including Lucerne Festival, Verbier Festival, Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival and Klavier Festival Ruhr. Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, ORF Radio Orchester Vienna, Vancouver Symphony, and China Philharmonic Orchestra, together with Sir Roger Norrington, Howard Griffiths, Eva Ollikainen, Mario Venzago, Cornelius Meister, and Elim Chan are among her esteemed musical partners.

For an intense start of the 2020/21 season, Claire paid homage to Beethoven’s anniversary with a compelling interpretation of his Pastorale symphony arranged for solo piano by Franz Liszt, with concerts at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and the Rheingau Musik Festival, where her recital was recorded for T-Mobile‘s streaming platform MagentaMusik 360. After appearances as a piano duo with Alexei Volodin at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and the release of a new album with her Trio Machiavelli, a major highlight is her Fall 2020 recital tour at the main halls of Berlin Philharmonie, and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. Later in the season, a further exciting debut takes place in the „Great Performers Series“ at New York‘s Lincoln Center. Among her orchestra engagements are dates with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, Museumsorchester Frankfurt, Basel Chamber Orchestra and the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. With the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, she will direct concertos of Mozart and Chopin from the keyboard.

Claire Huangci began her international career at the age of nine with concert performances and competition successes. After studying with Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she moved to Germany in 2007 for further studies with Arie Vardi at the Hannover Musikhochschule, completing them with honors in 2016. Early in her artistic career, she stood out as an expressive interpreter of Chopin, winning first prizes at the Chopin competitions in Darmstadt and Miami in 2009 and 2010. She was also the youngest participant to receive second prize at the International ARD Music Competition in 2011.

After recording her debut CD with solo works of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and her prizewinning double album of Scarlatti sonatas (German Record Critics’ Award and Gramophone Editor’s Choice), she released highly acclaimed recordings of Chopin’s Nocturnes in 2017 and in 2018 of Rachmaninoff’s complete Préludes: Following recordings of Beethoven’s violin concerto in the piano version and Fantasy for piano and orchestra by Schubert / Kabalewski with the RSO Vienna, her first orchestral album with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken under Shiyeon Sung was released in Fall 2019. In summer of 2020, her first chamber music album was released with Trio Machiavelli, whose interpretations of Ravel trio and Chausson piano quartet proved „a wholly exhilarating debut (…) splendidly transparent, and always expressive.“ (BR Klassik).