I always tell my friends that three good things came out of the pandemic for me. First, I am able to spend more time in my beautiful home. Prior to the pandemic, I only went home to sleep. Second, our company has transitioned to a hybrid model. I only work in the office two times per week. Third, I finally started to learn to play the piano.
During the early days of learning to play piano, I spent a lot of time online searching for music to listen to. I quickly built a playlist in YouTube Music with my findings. At first, this playlist contained piano music from all genres. Eventually, the list was so engulfed in classical piano that I created a new list strictly for classical.
The beautiful women in the yellow dress is named Yuja Wang. Today, I consider myself a huge fan of Rachmaninoff and Romantic-era piano. I credit this in part to the wonderful Yuja Wang.
I started searching online for classical piano pieces to listen to and draw inspiration from. I found a YouTube video featuring a lady in a yellow dress playing a piece composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff. I was completely blown away by the way that those pieces elicit a variety of emotions in my being. I felt connected to the music in a way I had never before experienced.
I found a few more videos of Rachmaninoff pieces being played by this wonderful woman. I studied her fingers and hands to learn how I might improve my own coordination. This study helped me to feel comfortable at the piano. Although I am still very amateur at playing piano, I give a lot of credit to she whose videos taught me to make better use of my hands. That incredible pianist is named Yuja Wang. It was through those videos that I developed a love for pieces composed by Rachmaninoff.
Prior to learning to play the piano, Tchaikovsky and Liszt were my favourite composers. I had never even heard of Rachmaninoff. It was through Yuja Wang that I was exposed to a few timeless pieces by Sergei Rachmaninoff. I realized that my favourite era of classical music is the Romantic era. The music just reaches deep into my soul and makes me experience a wide variety of emotions.
Listening to Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto number 3 puts me into a zone where I feel like I am about to cry, then feel triumphant, powerful, alive, and human. Romantic-era classical music is very powerful indeed. Ironically, when I was very young, I lived on a street called Brahms – but that’s another story altogether.
Thursday, October 20, 2022, I was blessed to be able to witness Yuja Wang perform live at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Canada. She performed a piece called Piano Concerto No. 3 composed for her by Magnus Lindberg. The world premier was the prior week in the United States. This was the Canadian premier of this magnificent piece.
I feel blessed to have attended this historic moment. Seeing one of my piano idols was the highlight of my year. I am forever thankful to have had this wonderful opportunity. The concerto was conducted by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Gimeno and was stunning to say the least. Gimeno is a fantastic conductor who I first had the pleasure of seeing this past spring when Jan Lisiecki performed at the same venue.
If you find yourself in Toronto, be sure to check out the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall.