BIOGRAPHY
Poetic and bold, the Chinese pianist Yilan Zhao conveys her art with a narrative force that is irresistible and utterly convincing. As the winner of the Lucerne Festival Fritz Gerber Award and the Kiefer Hablitzel Göhner Music Prize, she fascinates her audience with romantic lyricism and virtuoso brilliance. She is a laureate of the Rahn Music Prize and numerous international competitions, including the 70th Viotti Music Competition in Vercelli, The New York International Piano Competition, The Moscow International Chopin Competition for Young Pianists and The Valladolid International Piano Competition.
She has performed at festivals in Asia, Europe and the United States, in venues such as the Kölner Philharmonie, Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona and the Alice Tully Hall in New York. She has worked with the Musikkollegium Winterthur Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, the Argovia Philharmonic, Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, in collaboration with conductors such as Roberto González-Monjas, Thomas Adés, Sylvain Cambreling, Marc Kissoczy and Daniel Somogyi-Tóth. Her passion for contemporary music brought her to the stages of the "Sonic Matter" Festival at the Tonhalle Zurich, the Lucerne Festival and the "Focus" Festival in New York.
Her stage presence was never confined in the realm of pianist. As early as in elementary school, she was regularly hosting events and winning competitions in poetry recitation and singing competitions. m. Later, in pre-college at the Juilliard School New York, she also became involved in acting projects. Her experience on stage led her to create the "Sunday Matinée" concert series in Zurich in 2022. She curates and hosts the monthly concerts, which offer themed programs. Most recently, she commemorated Sergei Rachmaninoff on the 150th birthday of the composer and pianist. She also consciously emphasizes new music; in one of the last concerts in the series, she juxtaposed works by Schoenberg with music by Chinese-American composer Chen Yi, allowing the audience to experience different varieties of the twelve-tone technique. In her performances, she plays the role not only of an interpreter who presents the music, but also of an ambassador of music in the context of life.
Highlights of the upcoming 2023/24 season include a tour of the Mozart Double Concerto together with Swiss pianist Oliver Schnyder accompanied by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and the season opening concert at the La Prairie Cultural Center in Bellmund. In 2024 she will record her debut CD with Camille Saint-Saëns' First Piano Concerto, accompanied by the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna conducted by Howard Griffiths.
Born in Hunan, southern China, Yilan Zhao began her professional piano studies at the age of 10 at the Pre-College of Wuhan Conservatory. In September 2011, she entered the Juilliard School in New York and studied with Choong-Mo Kang, and in 2014, she began her studies at the Juilliard School in the class of Hung-Kuan Chen, graduating with a bachelor's degree with honors in 2018. From 2018, she studied with Konstantin Scherbakov at the Zurich University of the Arts, where she also graduated with honors in the summer of 2022 with her Soloist Diploma.