Yuja Wang

Gustavo Dudamel

Los Angeles Philharmonic

The showstopping Yuja Wang joins Gustavo Dudamel for the first of all four Rachmaninoff concertos across two weekends. The First Concerto reveals a young, ambitious composer defining his style and honing his voice. Completed when he was 18 and a student at the Moscow Conservatory, and then revised 26 years later once the composer had become a worldly, refined artist, the First offers Rachmaninoff’s characteristic Romantic style with the unabashed showmanship you might expect from a youthful virtuoso eager to flex his muscles.
In the second half, Dudamel moves from one of Rachmaninoff’s very first pieces to one of his last. Composed while living in the United States, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances was the composer’s final orchestral work and drew on his life’s work with nods to sacred chants and his own earlier music while looking forward to the new harmonic language of the 20th century.

Yuja Wang & Dudamel: Rachmaninoff Concerto 1