) is a classical pianist.

She began playing piano at age four as her aunt's first piano student (her aunt bought her a piano for her fourth birthday present). At age nine, Yang went to New York with her mother and aunt to play for Yoheved Kaplinsky

Yoheved Kaplinsky

Yoheved "Veda" Kaplinsky is an award-winning classical pianist, lecturer and professor of music at the Juilliard School...

. Kaplinsky said that she would be excited to teach her, but Yang's family did not have enough money to move to New York. So, Kaplinsky recommended her to study with Choong Mo Kang in South Korea. At age ten she entered the Korean National Conservatory studying under Kang, while she also swept many awards from numerous competitions in South Korea. In 1997 Joyce moved to New York and began studying in Juilliard's pre-college division with Kaplinsky. While in New York, she attended Ward Melville High School

Ward Melville High School

Ward Melville High School is a public high school in the Three Village Central School District of Suffolk County, New York on Long Island, serving grades ten through twelve. It is fed by the two junior high schools in the district: Paul J...

.

She gained international renown during the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition

Van Cliburn International Piano Competition

The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was first held in 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas and is hosted by Van Cliburn Foundation. It was created by Fort Worth area teachers in honor of Van Cliburn, who had won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition four years prior with Tchaikovsky's...

, in which she was awarded the silver medal despite being, at 19, the competition's youngest participant. During the same competition, Joyce was also awarded both the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for Best Performance of Chamber Music, as well as the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for the Best Performance of a New Work.

During the 2007-08 season, Joyce Yang toured the United States, playing concerts with a variety of symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, National Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony

Phoenix Symphony

The Phoenix Symphony is a major United States symphony orchestra based in Phoenix, Arizona.Founded in 1947 when Phoenix had a population of less than 100,000, the orchestra began as an occasional group of musicians performing a handful of concerts each year...

, and the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra.

Yang graduated from Juilliard with special honor, as the recipient of the 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize.

Debuts

venue	date	work
Dallas Symphony Orchestra Dallas Symphony Orchestra The Dallas Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra. It performs its concerts in the Meyerson Symphony Center in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, United States....	6 June 2009	Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto Number 2 Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rachmaninoff) The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901. The second and third movements were first performed with the composer as soloist on 2 December 1900...