Yi-Heng Yang
Creative Pathways: Historical Practice and Improvisation
Wednesday, October 14th, 2026
10:30am – 12pm
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Dr. Yi-heng Yang is an experienced performer and teacher of historically-based improvisation, and gives courses on these subjects to both modern piano and historical performance students at Juilliard. She will give a talk which offers teachers new ways of incorporating historically-inspired improvisation, practical harmony, genre-based ex tempore improv into a students' musical journey. Furthermore, the practice of making cadenzas, ornamentation, and model-based improvisation will be discussed as viable avenues for enhancing interpretive and musical freedom.
Date:
Wednesday, October 14th, 2026
10:30am – 12pm
Location:
Lang Hall at Hunter College
695 Park Ave /Rm 424N
New York City, NY 1002
Directions for guests:
Ida K. Lang Recital Hall, Room 424 North Building. Entrance on the south side of East 69th St., between Park Ave. & Lexington Ave.
GPS Reference Address: 111 E. 69th St., it is the Consulate of Mali across the street from the North Building Courtyard Entrance, therefore guests should not try to actually enter that building.
For travel directions to Hunter College: http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/abouthunter/maps/68th-street-main-campus
A reminder:
– Outside guests must include home address when RSVPing
– EMPL ID for All Hunter/CUNY Guests need to be recorded in the attendance guest list
Historical keyboardist and pianist Yi-heng Yang is recognized for her “remarkable expressivity and technique (Early Music Magazine).” Her playing has been described as “impeccable (BBC Music)” and “superbly adept (Gramophone).” A dedicated educator, she is a full-time faculty member of The Juilliard School, where she teaches in the Keyboard Studies, Historical Performance, Chamber Music and Precollege departments in a range of subjects from studio piano, fortepiano and performance practice, to improvisation.
In recent seasons, Ms. Yang has been a featured performer with the Albany Symphony, the New York Philharmonic Chamber Music Series at Merkin, The Boston Early Music Festival, Forte/Piano Festival at Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards, with the Twelfth Night Ensemble, at the People’s Symphony Concerts, The Boston Clavichord Society, Carnegie Hall, The Phillips Collection, Columbus Early Music, and The Helicon Foundation.
Her album of Schubert lieder with fortepiano, “Where Only Stars Can Hear Us (Avie Records)” with Grammy award-winning tenor Karim Sulayman, was #1 on Classical Billboard and listed in the New York Times’ “Best Classical Music of 2020.” Her many other albums on period instruments, including a solo album “Free Spirits: early Romantic music on the Graf piano, The Complete Cellos Sonatas of Brahms with Kate Bennett Wadsworth, and Schumann Piano Trios (Trio Ilona, with Ravenna Lipchik and Kate Wadsworth) have also received wide critical acclaim. Her most recent release is an album on the Deux-Elles label with period violinist Aisslinn Nosky, which is the first recording of the Complete Fortepiano and Violin Sonatas of Jane Mary Guest, a Georgian-era composer who was a student of J.C. Bach.
A sought after guest teacher, she has given guest classes at schools such as NEC, Curtis, Mannes and Rutgers. She is artistic director of the Roosevelt Island Chamber Music Society, which focuses on period chamber and solo music of the classical and romantic eras. She is creator and co-host of the International Fortepiano Salon Online and co-creator and director of the Sociable Fortepiano mini-residency and festival in NYC. Yi-heng lives with her husband and two kids on Roosevelt Island.
RSVP
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