Fan-Chiang Yi - Piano
Taipei National University of the Arts
Music critic Satoru Takaku once commented in Japanese classical music magazines, the latter being the music critic of the Japanese magazine Ongaku no Tomo, that the performance by the Germany-based pianist Yi Fan-Chiang is “undoubtedly the most remarkable among the performers tonight; unquestionably, in his superb playing, we see the endless future of the piano circle in Taiwan.”
Pianist Yi Fan-Chiang emigrated to study in Germany at the age of thirteen. He graduated from Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover and received Konzertexam. During his working on PHD, he was qualified for piano instructing as a lecturer, and simultaneously substituted for Professor Tomislav Baynov at Musikhochschule Trossingen, instructing piano in master and doctoral degrees for three years. Up to the present, he has been receiving more than 30 awards from international competitions and musical governmental institutions.
While teaching and performing intensively, pianist Yi Fan-Chiang spares no effort in popularizing artistic and cultural activities. He participated in charity performances at fundraising events for patients suffering from Osteogenesis Imperfecta, as well as the 40th anniversary evening party held by St. Anne’s Home. Since 2013, he has been instructing music talented students at Special Education in New Taipei City; meanwhile, he was invited to be the distinguished professor of master classes for high quality educational project, held by National Wu-Ling Senior High School, during which he put numerous efforts in nurturing the young talents. His pupils have not only achieved great results in nationally representative competitions in Taiwan, but also won awards in international events from Japan, Macau, America, France, Germany, Italy to Spain; some of them even had the opportunity to perform at the celebrated Carnegie Hall. Yi Fan-Chiang has been invited to assume the office of the councilor of National Theatre and Concert Hal for two consecutive years, the director of the board in Frederic Chopin Foundation of Taipei and the chief consultant of 2016 Virtuoso Taoyuan Music Competition
The performance of Pianist Yi Fan-Chiang has been regularly requested in countries among the U.S., Europe and Asia; his piano lectures and master classes have also been held in Germany, China and Taiwan for many times. The video recording of his performance has been widely broadcast on public TV channels and radio stations in Germany, Poland, Russia, Belgium, France, Italy, Romania, Spain, Israel, America and Taiwan. He also cooperated with orchestras such as National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Moments Musicaux, Taipei Symphony and Chinese Orchestra, Chiuko Traditional Orchestra, TNUA (Taipei National University of Arts) String Ensemble, NTUA (National Taiwan University of Arts) Wind Orchestra, along with others. Click-throughs to the videos of his collaborative concerto concerts with Evergreen Symphony Orchestra are available in the audio and video programs provided by Eva Air. Moreover, he has been participating in at art festivals including Braunschweig Classix Festival and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, Concurso y Festival Internacional de Piano de Ibiza in Spain, Fête de la Musique in France and also on similar occasions in Austria, Russia, Israel, China and many countries.
Inheriting from both the German and Russian piano schools, pianist Yi Fan-Chiang has been instructed, supported and influenced profoundly by many important contemporary musicians, such as maestro Lazar Berman, the Russian pianist and conductor Igor Zhukov, who is of paramount importance in interpreting the works by Scriabin; Paul Badura-Skoda, the heir to German-Austrian traditions; the late German pianist Conrad Hansen, who collaborated with the legendary conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler in the performances of concertos; Pavel Gillilov, Dan Zhao-Xi, the respected teacher of the pianist Li Yundi.
Thus far, pianist Yi Fan-Chiang has collaborated with various musicians abroad, including: the internationally renowned violinist Joshua Bell; Szymanowski Quartet; Cellist Eric Wilson, Wen-Sinn Yang, Katharina Deserno; the Swiss violinist Robert Rozek, Kathrin ten Hagen; Pianist Gesa Lucker, professor at The University of Music in Cologne (Hochschule für Musik Koln); Li Fang-Yi, professor of piano at Villeneuve Saint-Georges Conservatoire in France; famous Chinese Erhu (Chinese two-stringed fiddle) players Zhao Lei and Gao Shao-Ching; Klaus Arp, conductor of South German Radio Symphony Orchestra; conductor Gernot Schmalfuss, Gilbert Varga and others.
In 2019/2020 he will perform several Concertos, including the Ravel Concerto for the left hand under the baton of maestro Tibor Varga; Rachmaninov second Concerto; Beethoven third Concerto and Triple Concerto; Saint-Saens second Concerto; and a premiere of the Piano Concerto by Yiu-Kwong Chung.