Santa Barbara has been fortunate to bear witness to the wonder of pianist Yuja Wang from her formative days through her continuing majestic career trajectory. Now 38, Wang is now considered one of the world's finest living pianists and her numerous performances in Santa Barbara have spanned a variety of contexts.
Let us count the ways. After her local debut in UCSB Arts & Lecture’s “Hear and Now” series at Hahn Hall, back in 2009, she appeared in a bedazzling German repertoire solo recital at the Granada and twice in fruitful partnership with violinist Leonidas Kavakos . Last week in a sold-out Granada show, sponsored by A&L, she added yet another format to the local list, in a dynamic and creatively programmed piano duo tete a tete with another fine young-ish pianist, Iceland's Vikingur Ólafsson .
As could be predicted, the keyboardists — perched on concert grand pianos with the players in the epicenter — delivered on their preceding reputations as virtually unassailable virtuosos, here in the exponentially larger sound of two pianos soaring and whispering. But what gave the evening extra distinction was an inventive approach to programming, in which the standard go-to scores from Schubert (the glowing “Fantasia in F minor for Four Hands”) and the overly long Rachmaninoff “Symphonic Dances,” to close, were nicely counterbalanced by palatable modernist morsels by Luciano Berio, John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow, John Adams and Arvo Pärt.