reviews
“Tabuh-Tabuhan was a ground-breaking work and it deserved the dedicated approach of Knussen and the BPO, who played with a captivating blend of musical commitment and exuberant, playful energy. The solo piano parts were played by Katherine Dowling and Qing Jiang, whose pungent motifs, repetitions and rhythmic explosions were lucid and full of bite. The overall effect was a beguiling amalgam of the familiar and the strange.”
- Seen and Heard International (Claire Seymour)
“Tackling this monumental work [Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Variations] was the diminutive guest soloist, Qing Jiang...From the first notes, it was obvious from her dazzling technique and velvety touch why she already has amassed a long list of honors. Both orchestra and soloist set a breathless pace and Jiang's dramatic playing added to the exciting performance.”
- Chattanooga News (Mel Wilhoit)
“Qing Jiang was born in Zhenjiang, China, and is making her return to the CSO stage. She graced the stage in a dazzling, long white gown that pooled up around her feet as she sat at the keyboard. Her performance was no less impressive. It was characterized by crystalline clarity, a deft touch, and highly expressive playing, delivered via an animated performance... Maestro Dan requested Qing Jiang to perform [a cadenza] composed by Clara Wieck, the famous concert pianist, composer, and wife of composer Robert Schumann. That turned out to be an inspired choice as this extensive and technically demanding work really showed off the performer's musical chops... The middle and final movements were no less impressive and demonstrated Qing Jiang to be a performer of the first order as the musical demands ranged from delicate to athletic. This was Mozaart at its best, and a standing ovation was rewarded by a solo encore: Schumann's quiet and introspective "Traumerie" ("Dreaming"). Brava!”
- Chattanooga News (Mel Wilhoit)
“Pianist Qing Jiang appeared to be the most proficient player of the day... she performed the vaporous, trailing away notes of the ghost as written... she has exceptional talent for a woman of her age...”
- The New York Sun (Fred Kirshnit)
“Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu and pianist Qing Jiang presented high artistry Saturday evening in Jordan Hall, courtesy of the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts...Jiang set the tone beautifully for...the evening. [On Mozart's Adagio in E Major K.261], her playing and phrasing, incredibly balanced, made the missing orchestra moot...[On the Beethoven] Jiang had real opportunity to shine (in a wonderfully dark way) and polish her mettle, again setting a tone, but now with whispery, tension-laden, rhythmically precise octaves.
...After intermission, the two performers let their hair down altogether as they lit up the place with the Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano, a world premiere of Ke Xu’s The Echo in the Sky, and Ravel’s Tzigane...
...[They gave] a passionate rendering of Debussy’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor, one of the composer’s last works. It was lush, intensely quiet, big and bold, just to start. Jiang’s piano playing was simply fantastic.”
- The Boston Musical Intelligencer (Jim McDonald)
“It was a dazzling performance, made all the more exciting by the spontaneous feel of the last minute switch. The young musicians –violinists Issac Allen, Areta Zhulla, Bram Goldstein and Grace Park; Violists Youming Chen and Angela Choong; cellists Dmitri Atapine, Sunny Yang and Yuan Zhang; bassist DaXun Zhan, and harpsichordist Qing Jiang- tore into the piece with unity, amazing focus and ferocious energy. Entrances were elegant and precise, individual parts were clearly articulated, and each movement sounded dynamic and shapely. If this is the future of music, let’s have more of it.”
- The San Jose Mercury News
“The program ended with Robert Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in D minor, performed by Ying Xue, violinist, and Qing Jiang, pianist. Schumann, like Brahms, was inspired by the Hungarian violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, especially while writing this grand sonata of turbulent contrasts and lyrical interludes. Its surging climaxes were passionately rendered by these two fiery musicians, whose vigorous playing elicited sustained applause between movements.”
- The New York Times (Vivien Schweitzer)
“This concert opened with a rare and exhilarating airing of Tabuh-Tabuhan, the 1936 toccata for orchestra and two pianos in which he (Colin McPhee) captures the gamelan sound. Pre-dating John Adams’s kinetic energy by half a century earlier and possessing greater depth, the three-movement work is built around a languid Nocturne. Katherine Dowling and Qing Jiang played the solo parts with rhythmic verve.”
- The Telegraph (John Allison)
“not least of all, International program pianist Qing Jiang, whose riveting performance of Schumann’s Opus 17 Fantasy ended the evening’s first half...”
- Music@Menlo Daily Update (Patrick Castillo)
“the Chameleons played the American composer’s (Kirchner) Duo II, a tremendously demanding piece for violin and piano, bravely undertaken by Kurkowicz and pianist Qing Jiang. The duo offered virtuosity in every measure, with the work’s unusual juxtaposition of pitches, and almost random insertions of pizzicato and ponticello mid-phrase.”
- Boston Classical Review (Keith Powers)
“Leon Kirchner’s Duo II for violin and piano is a late work, composed in 2001 as a memorial to violinist Felix Galimir. It is a marvelously complex piece for violin and piano, played here by Joanna Kurkowicz and Qing Jiang. From the edgy, taut opening through the more reflective later sections, Kurkowicz made her violin express a wide range of psychic truths, alternately plaintive, mournful, manic and forceful. Jiang’s piano echoed and supported the mood of the violin, but as an independent voice.”
- The Boston Musical Intelligencer (Leon Golub)