MIDDLEBURY, Vt. ? Taipei-born prodigy and pianist Pei-Yao Wang will perform on Friday, Nov. 17, at 8 p.m. in the Middlebury College Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Wang, who began playing the piano at age five, is visiting Middlebury for the first time.

For this performance, Wang has brought together a number of young string musicians, including violinist and Vermont Youth Orchestra alumnus Soovin Kim, who went on to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music and The Curtis Institute and later win the Paganini International Violin Competition, and cellist Sophie Shao, both of whom have performed at Middlebury before. They are joined by Jessica Lee on violin and Rebecca Albers on viola. The group will perform music by three composers whose anniversaries are being celebrated this year: Mozart, Schumann and Shostakovich.

Wang has established herself as a prominent soloist and chamber musician. She made her orchestral debut with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra at age eight. Four years later, she was the youngest student ever invited to study at The Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Seymour Lipkin and the institute’s director, Gary Graffman. She has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, and has been a soloist with several orchestras, including the Taipei Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, Wang has collaborated with various internationally acclaimed quartets including the Guarneri, Orion, Chicago, Mendelssohn and Miro foursomes.
 
She has also performed with distinguished artists such as Claude Frank, Hilary Hahn, David Shifrin and Mitsuko Uchida.
She studied with Claude Frank at Yale University, where she received a master’s of music and pursued a concentration in architecture. She currently resides in New York City, where, for several years, she was the only student of celebrated pianist Richard Goode. She is a member of both the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Program and the Chamber Music Society Two at Lincoln Center, a program to promote emerging young artists.

Middlebury College Performing Arts Series Director Paul Nelson said, “Pianist Pei-Yao Wang was brought to our attention by a friend who heard her at the Marlboro Music Festival, which attracts some of the world’s finest young musicians to learn and perform chamber music for several weeks each summer.”

Wang’s performance is sponsored by the Middlebury College Performing Arts Series. The Middlebury College Center for the Arts Concert Hall is on South Main Street (Route 30). 

Reserved seating tickets are $15 for general admission and $12 for seniors. A pre-performance dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. at Rehearsals Cafe in the Center for the Arts. Reservations are required. For tickets or dinner reservations, call the Middlebury College Box Office at 802-443-6433. Online tickets and information are available at www.middlebury.edu/arts.