Lang Lang’s young pianists Elizabeth Zietz and Shuheng Zhang excite audience at festival opener in Park Hotel Vitznau
It was as if the skies over Lake Lucerne were directing proceedings – the clouds dissipated, and the evening sun shone during the golden hour when Elizabeth Zietz and Shuheng Zhang played Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s piano sonata four hands in D major. The piece that unites brilliant technique with deep musical meaning was chosen by the Lang Lang International Music Foundation’s (LLIMF) young pianists as the finale to their extremely contrasting and highly ambitious programme. Two works by Franz Schubert followed as an encore.
The opening concert of the 6th Swiss Alps Classics was accompanied by a very special natural spectacle as the mist and heavy grey rain clouds over the mystical setting dispersed and all at once the shoreline in front of the Park Hotel Vitznau was immersed in a warm gold. It was the perfect timing for a memorable photo shoot with the evening’s two protagonists after the long final applause had died down. Elizabeth Zietz, 21, and Shuheng Zhang, 19, both shone brightly in the picture postcard panorama. “The audience was really receptive and I appreciated it. I remember when I bowed, everybody had such beautiful smiling faces. So, it was really fun and I’m really grateful for the Swiss Alps Classics having me and the Lang Lang Foundation for giving me the opportunity. And of course, this beautiful hotel for hosting us,” said Shuheng Zhang. “I think that we can draw so much inspiration from the scenery here. And just to be able to play in the beautiful Verlinde Hall and look at Lake Lucerne and the mountains outside is an incredible experience,” enthused Elizabeth Zietz.
The Swiss Alps Classics and the Lang Lang International Music Foundation have been cooperating successfully now for the last four years ever since Lang Lang performed personally together with four of his scholars in theater(uri) in Altdorf on 1 July 2018. This year, his foundation has once again sent two highly talented young musicians to the Swiss Alps. The format is already well established as each of the young pianists devise a 30 to 40 minutes long solo programme before a work for four hands brings the concert to an end. The close partnership has been supported right from the beginning by the “POK Pühringer Privatstiftung” foundation.
“Festival of the Violin”: to tie into this year’s Swiss Alps Classics motto, Ziyu He, the Chinese violinist who moved to Salzburg in 2011 and who will play a recital at Andermatt Konzerthalle this Saturday (6.30 pm), introduced not only the two Lang Lang International Music Foundation alumni but also sprang a surprise by playing Fritz Kreisler’s “Recitative and Scherzo Caprice for Solo Violin Op. 6.
A video of the opening concert at the 6th Swiss Alps Classics can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
All the information about the Lang Lang International Music Foundation can be found on its www.langlangfoundation.org website.
An overview of four-day festival’s programme can be found here.
