In tune and top of her game

Wang Yujia plays with the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Harding in Beijing. China Daily

Pianist will play 'hardest concerto'

Heavy metal magic

"We are both Aquarius so we understand each other. We did not talk to each other at all. We just played. The first time (Rachmaninoff's No 3) had been a bit shaky, but the second was perfect. All the characters were out. It was really cool."

It is the first album that the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra recorded with a soloist, and Dudamel feels this is a landmark recording for the orchestra. "Yuja is very young and very talented. We are of the same generation and together we are all building a new generation of musicians and audiences," he says.

Born in 1987 in Beijing to a percussionist father and a dancer mother, Wang started to learn piano at age 6. Her aptitude for the keyboard and her performance skills soon began to shine. She won several competitions in Beijing and by the time she was 9 she had performed in Spain, Germany and Australia.

She won the Aspen Music Festival's concerto competition in 2000, which led to her audition for Leon Fleisher's Carnegie Hall master classes in New York. In 2002, the 17-year-old was admitted by the Curtis Institute, where she spent six years with Gary Graffman, who was also Lang Lang's mentor.

Her breakthrough came in 2005 when, as an undergraduate at Curtis, she replaced Radu Lupu at a day's notice to perform Beethoven's Fourth Concerto with the National Arts Center Orchestra under the baton of Pinchas Zukeman. It led to the call to step in for Martha Argeric and play with the Boston Symphony and Charles Dutiot in 2007.

The opportunities to replace famous artists began to snowball. International Piano magazine had her on one cover and called 2009 "Yuja's Year".

Now her busy schedule has her flying from one concert hall to the next. She just finished a residency in London.

She plans to return to China more-not only because it's her home but also because of her growing fan base.