A PIANO DIALOGUE OF NEW GENERATION / RUAN YANGYANG Piano Recital / Review

 

A PIANO DIALOGUE 

OF NEW GENERATION

RUAN YANGYANG Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

20 Jun 2025

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 June 2025 with the title "Bridging classical music, pop culture with easy listening pieces".

Young Chinese pianist Ruan Yangyang, recent graduate from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and winner of multiple piano competitions, purports to be a “Pianist of a New Generation”. What does that even mean? His piano recital came some way to answer that poser, with an attempt to bridge the gap between serious classical music and popular culture by appealing to younger listeners.

Addressing the audience in both English and Mandarin, his recital comprised separate chapters with titles like “Love, Longing and Dreams”, “Innocence and Remembrance” et cetera. These juxtaposed classics with arrangements of music written for Japanese Anime movies. The recital opened with Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne in B flat minor (Op.9 No.1), displaying a true feel for cantabile, the art of singing.

This went directly to Your Lie In April (2016), partnered by a trio formed by violinist Christina Zhou, cellist Xu Xuena and percussionist Cheong Kah Yiong which performed in all the Anime pieces. This was very pleasant mood music, lovingly played, which incorporated Mozart’s Turkish Rondo midway through.

A participant in the 2021 Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, his credentials were again on display for the Pole’s Nocturne in C minor (Op.48 No.1), which was passionate and full-blooded. Butter-Fly from Digimon Adventure (1999), that followed, continued on that thread by including the big chords from Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C sharp minor (Op.3 No.2).

Ruan’s biggest test came in Chopin’s demanding Ballade No.4 in F minor (Op.52), with pathos aplenty leading up to a thrilling climax, before a memory lapse almost derailed the proceedings. After a spot of premature applause, its coda was nailed on for a perfect close. Joe Hisaishi’s Merry-Go-Round of Life from Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) was a merry little waltz, which had Chopin’s Waltz in C sharp minor (Op.64 No.2) tacked on, but transposed to G minor.

Hisaishi’s Spirited Away (2001) was perhaps the most familiar music for youngsters, with Ruan introducing even younger guests - violinist Rebecca Oh and cellist Annie Dan. They played with confidence and acquitted themselves well, before Ruan polished off Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in E flat major (BWV.876) with utmost clarity of articulation.

For Call of Silence from Attack On Titan (2017) to include Chopin’s Funeral March (from Sonata No.2) was an astute choice, and even smarter was to follow its stormy pages with Debussy’s Prelude No.7 or Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest (What The West Wind Saw). Arguably the Frenchman’s most violent music, Ruan delivered idiomatically and with aplomb.

Young pianist Tiffany Huang then joined him in DJ Okawari’s pretty Flower Dance, making stark contrasts with Zhang Zhao’s Pi Huang (1995), which closed the classical segment for good on a virtuosic note.

There was more light music with Big Fish & Begonia, Senbonzakura and two encores. Variations on Molihua was enjoyable, and so was a mini-ensemble of seven young string players joining Ruan and his trio for a final feel-good piece, the Chinese song Xuan Cao Hua (Daylilies).

Ruan Yangyang's Piano Recital was 

presented by Future Music.

Photography by Yong Junyi.