Yuja needs new outfit for Istanbul
mainThe 47th Istanbul Music Festival proudly presents the ‘sensational pianist Yuja Wang’, we learn today.
Do they know what she wears to work?
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Istanbul is not Riad.
That’s true, and that region of the country voted against the party of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the last parliamentary elections.
But RTE is the guy in control and if you haven’t noticed, he’s tightening his hammerlock on the country’s politics and government with every passing week. Headscarves for the ladies — regardless of religious persuasion — are most definitely “in.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this is headed.
Oh, and this is nice, too: https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/what-s-behind-turkey-s-fervent-support-for-venezuela-s-maduro-1.6872338
Erdogan. The more the US meddles in that region – which it does with catastrophic consequences since 1953 – the stronger they make Islamist populist identity politics, and their protagonists, like Erdogan.
I think the chickenhawks who clicked the dislike button, should go and volunteer to serve on the ground in the US military in Afghanistan or Syria.
Have you nothing better to do at The Strad?
It’s ok, dresses is her forte, if not fortissimo))
Either a sequined hijab or a burka with a large second aperture for the navel could be acceptable.
My fly on the wall in Istanbul tells me that the government has ordered a special niqab being made for Wang, a hughe black tent with long sleeves where the hands come-out in black silk gloves. Also there were plans to cover the piano as well in garb since the open lid was deemed ‘too revealing’ for a proper audience. No doubt this will be a spectacular evening.
Her skirts are part of her routine and brand = fair game.
Questionable. But the point above was that her dresses and her looks receive far more (slightly creepy) attention than her playing. She is a serious pianist, after all.
Her taste in attire needs to mature. Pretty soon down the line (and it will happen overnight) her whole shtick is going to turn into Baby Jane Streetwalker.
Why does it matter so much, what she wears but hardly anyone ever discusses what men wear on stage?
ever heard of Liberace?
Show me a man who walks onstage wearing a miniskirt that could be mistaken for a belt and I’ll say something snarky about him.
Because men always wear the same thing.
Well, there are a couple of variations that barely count as variations: the long-sleeved shirt (tucked or untucked), or the jacket-with-turtleneck. So boring.
It’s ridiculous, really, how much skin women are expected to reveal. (And then of course they are scolded for revealing too much…)
Imagine, if you will, Sokolov walking onstage dressed as a gogo dancer. Would people be entitled to comment, or giggle? Thus it is with Wang, who looks absolutely asinine in her pageantwear. Gurl, meet your art with the dignity it deserves, or at least pretend.
False syllogism with appeal to authority; charming.
LOL Get your rhetorical jargon straight.
Why ? Because there’s not much else to talk about – it conveniently takes attention away from the fact that she is not a great musician.
Honestly, I really wouldn’t care what she wears if she would only listen to a chord progression, pay attention to score markings, and do some deeper study into period style.
Better critics than you rate her playing very highly.
Appeal to authority = not an argument.
While the statement is certainly true in abstract, “Better critics” isn’t technically a case of appeal to authority; it’s a hypothetical comparison, asserting capability. The critics referenced aren’t necessarily of renown. “X from the Y Publication” would be what you’re looking for.
Nah, it’s a textbook case of argumentum ab auctoritate despite your sophist contortions.
You sure have some nerve telling one of the greatest pianist on the planet if not in history to go study more because she does not play your own interpretations. Please, do you demand Argerich pay attention to score markings? Or tell Perahia do some deeper study into period style? “listen to a chord progression”… Don’t make me laugh.
Of course nobody would say such things to Argerich or Perahia, but we’re talking about Yuja Wang, who is nowhere near their artistic level.
And here you are, continuing to prove my thesis comment after comment… Remarkable.
You have no “thesis” to offer, despite your delusions of adequacy.
Yuja Wang is a great artist.
She enthralls middling ears everywhere.
Ha. Exactly the opposite. She repels middling ears everywhere who have little idea what they are listening to but love to pretend they have “good tastes”. The poster above is a good example. “Listen to a chord progression…” Did *sigh* just start her first year in music school?
Cf. Duning-Kruger Effect.
Yet you believe you know better than her collaborators such as Kavakos, MTT, Abbado, Kocsis, K. Petrenko, etc.. Do they too have “middling ears” according to your superior wisdom? I suppose it’s too high an expectation for you to see the irony of your referencing the Duning-Kruger [sic] effect? But of course.
Business is business, money is money. And no irony in my referencing Dunning-Kruger, the reference is entirely apt.
Yeah, it is already entirely obvious that you are too cognitively deficient to see the irony. No need to confirm it.
Your projection of cognitive deficiency is ironic, yes.
Harrumph: “She enthralls middling ears everywhere.”
As did Rubenstein, Horowitz*, and Richter. Actually, like them, Yuja Wang has enthralled all kinds of ears, including some of the finest alive.
Having heard her many times myself, I would say last season’s program of Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Ligeti, & Prokofiev (plus encores ranging from Mendelssohn to Prokofiev to Schubert/Liszt to Glück/Sgambati) was especially haunting and visionary. Beyond her prodigious memory and technical command, the performance revealed a unique, compelling artistic sensibility matched with the means to express it fully. No one I’ve ever heard plays the Scriabin 10th that way, even though the way she hears it is right there in the score, hiding in plain sight like diamonds.
Oh, and *sigh*…sorry, but there’s no other way to say it: your comment above is silly.
* Having heard both Horowitz and Wang play his Carmen Variations live on two occasions each, I can say without hesitation that her renditions were finer: more thrilling, dramatic, and beautiful (not to mention accurate).
Thine auld ears do fail you in thy dotage.
And you cup of jealousy is flooding the basement
I trust Nimitta’s ears and judgement based on his previous comments on a whole range of performances.. I don’t know what you have to show.
There’s your first mistake, trusting any ears but your own.
Strange outlook on life.
Never leave your home, use transport or eat food you haven’t produced etc. if you don’t trust other peoples senses!
Following your own logic, you shouldn’t have made any comment here at all, as your ears are not mine, and it’s utterly meaningless when you talk to me about what your ears intercept.
Now we don’t know whether your judgement is valid or not, assuming none of us have ever heard Wang or anyone else playing. But we do know your logic is flawed.
She is one of the giants. Perhaps the best pianist on the planet currently. She can dress how ever she likes. That is her choice. It doesn’t change her extraordinary playing!
Indeed, she is the shortest piano giant around.
You do know that Turkey is a secular country? She can wear whatever she likes there.
But for how much longer?
Turkish secularity is probably as strong as Turkish democracy.
… which is looking pretty weak right now.
Sounds to me like the sort of nonsense the late, great Eileen Joyce used to have to put up with as the tin eared critics discussed her wardrobe not her playing.
If Wang’s playing approached the scintillating perfection of Eileen Joyce’s playing I’d be more inclined to ignore her ridiculous drag.
Then you will, of course, ignore it.
Ignore, no. Forgive, yes.
Yuja can look sexy in a full body veil.
(Though it’d be hard to play with gloves on, or see through the eye mesh, but she hardly needs to look at the keyboard to play.)
I’d rather her playing be sexy, but that’s beyond her.
And those articles get more replies than most other articles. “Now Yuja Wang comes out in her undies” sure does catch one’s eye! She’s coming to Boston in a few weeks. I wonder what she will wear!
You mean “who she is wearing”. That’s proper fashion speak.
She’s wearing Heidi Fleiss.
Yuja Wang is going to tour with Dresden Staatskapelle and Vienna Philharmonic next season. She is also going to tour with Kammerorchester Wien – Berlin (playing without a conductor, of course). She will premiere a new concerto by John Adams this season, and Salonen is reportedly writing a new one for her. I would say at this stage of her career she has earned the right to wear whatever she wants (Gulda comes to mind), but then again she has never given a damn about what “critics” think of her clothes from the very beginning.
I see nothing wrong with how she dresses. Less is best!
Yuja and all soloists can wear what they want and the audience will also come or go as they please. (well, as long as they’re not naked obviously) Free world, people!
Dear Norman,
Yuja Wang is a wonderful pianist and musician, and a beautiful woman.
Honestly, don’t you think enough has been said on this site about her clothes?
None of your business, you sexist!
A cat can look at a drag queen.
Not sure if you realise, but Turkey is a MODERN, SECULAR country where women are allowed to dress however they want. Maybe watch some Turkish TV to see how Turkish women dress. You might be surprised, Yuja Wang looks conservative compared to what’s on a Turkish television channel.