ABOUT YONGMEI HU

 

The San Francisco advocate raved about Miss Hu’s playing and wrote:”…but none of this was important besides the force of Hu’s artistic personality and her assured ability to reach out to her audience’s feelings and imagination.” And it added:”She communicated her emotions about this music so powerfully that she held listeners under her spell for almost two hours…”.

 

An exclusive review by Lyn Bronson wrote:”Miss Hu played this work with intelligence, taste and refinement… performance showed a high order of musical understanding, her pianistic skills focused on musical element…”.

 

Dustin Hoffman wrote: ”Yongmei plays with exquisite beauty and perfection.”.

 

Zubin Mehta, one of the world's foremost conductors and Yongmei's mentor, has written "Miss Hu has excellent control, plays with great articulation and has wonderful musical insight. I wish her the best, as I know she will make a substantial career.".

 

Yongmei’s recent worldwide performances include her sold-out solo debut recital at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center performing monumental works of Brahms Sonata No. 3 in F minor opus 5 and Chopin 24 Preludes opus 28. Yongmei performed the Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 in D Minor with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra which was conducted by Chen, Xiyang at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center’s Concert Hall.  She performed Mozart Piano Concerto No.1 in C major, K.467 with the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra at the Guangzhou Xinhai Concert Hall.  Yongmei performed the Chopin Piano Concerto No.1 in E Minor at the Rudolfinum Dvorak Hall in Prague, with their Musici de Praga Orchestra.

 

Yongmei toured Russia performing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and performed with the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra at the Great Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg. In Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, Yongmei performed with the Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Opera House as well as performing a gala concert for all the diplomats and Ambassadors in Azerbaijan, all to great success.

 

With only three week’s notice to learn Howard Shore’s Piano Concerto “Ruin and Memory”, written for superstar LangLang, Yongmei performed this work at the prestigious Canadian Governor’s Award Gala held at the National Arts Center in Ottawa Canada with the National Arts Center Orchestra conducted by Stephane Laforest.

 

Yongmei performed a solo concert Brahms  Sonata, No.3 in F Minor Op.5 and Mozart Piano concerto No.21 C Major K.467 with the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra at the Shanghai International Arts Festival.

 

Yongmei has participated in the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, the Banff Music Festivals in Canada, the Moulin d'Ande Festival in France and the Russian Hulkshule in Freiburg Germany

 

As an award winning recording artist, Yongmei often appears on radio and television. She performed the Copland Sonata live on KQED radio in San Francisco and also performed recitals at the Los Angeles County Museum which were Live broadcast on KUSC radio. Examples of Yongmei’s television appearances include a solo recital and a documentary titled “Yongmei Hu” on cable TV Grand Piano Television as well as a documentary about her career which was broadcast on Pacific Abroad Television.

 

Yongmei has performed recitals such as the Carmel Music Society's subscription Recital Series; the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall; the Caroline H. Hume concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music;  the Smothers Theater at Pepperdine University in Malibu; as well as at the American Cathedral in Paris.

 

In 2011 Yongmei was honored to perform for the US- China business leaders’ forum in New York City where President Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker.

 

Yongmei’s musical genre is vast and extends beyond classical music. In 2014, Yongmei premiered Sir Paul McCartney’s solo piano composition “A Leaf” at the Asheville Symphony benefit Gala Concert in the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville, North Carolina. In 2009 Yongmei, together with Melissa Etheridge, performed at the Breast Cancer Symposium in Washington DC, which was sponsored by Hard Rock International. In 2008 Yongmei appeared with actor Chevy Chase and Grammy Award winner Tom Scott performing Liszt Piano Concerto No.1 in E Flat in Phoenix at the Orpheum Theater at the Believe Concert, a fundraiser for Children with Cancer.

 

Yongmei has recorded an album on Dream Makers Records featuring Schubert Sonata in B- Flat Major D.960 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

 

It has been Yongmei's passion and vision that children are the future for classical music and for a better world. She has been very much involved with a multicultural children's foundation called Alphabet Kids. An album of Sweet Dreams Lullabies was released for Alphabet Kids.

 

Yongmei began playing the piano at the age of five, participated as a soloist at the Shanghai Spring Festival at the age of ten and attended middle school of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at the age of twelve. She earned her BA at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The Julliard School offered Yongmei a scholarship for graduate study, but she chose to go to University of California in Los Angeles and studied with Aube Tzerko, the assistant to Arthur Schnabel. Yongmei earned her Master of Fine Arts from UCLA. During those years, she also studied with the Russian pedagogue Vitaly Margulis. Yongmei has worked with great pianists such as Andras Schiff, Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Gyorgy Sebok, Stephen Kovacevich and Fu Song.

 

Yongmei maintains a busy schedule of performing and teaching. She has given master classes to gifted piano students at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Among her private students are the children of Dustin Hoffman, Pierce Brosnan and Chevy Chase.