China finds keys to Malaysian pianist's heart

"Upon hearing the Yellow River Piano Concerto for the first time, I was deeply moved," Malaysian pianist Claudia Yang remembers vividly the scene after more than three decades.

"Looking back, I felt incredible. I was only 12 years old, but I could feel the blood was boiling inside me," she recalls.

Born into a Chinese-Malaysian family in Muar, a small town in Malaysia's southern Johor state, Yang began her piano studies at the age of 5 and her talent soon became apparent.

"When I was 12 years old, my brother bought me some cassettes of Chinese folk music, as well as the Yellow River Cantata and the Yellow River Piano Concerto, that was when I heard the masterpiece for the first time," she says.

The Yellow River Piano Concerto is based on the Yellow River Cantata by Chinese composer Xian Xinghai, and has long inspired patriotism across China. The piano concerto is one of the best internationally known musical works that presents Chinese material in the form of classical music.

It is also how a Malaysian girl who aspired to be a pianist found her love for Chinese music and culture. "I was thinking at the time, if given the opportunity, I want to perform it in China some day," Yang says.

Yang went on to further her piano studies in Europe, among the heartlands of classical music, eventually achieving her goal of becoming a pianist. She married a man from Beijing and the couple decided to settle down in the Chinese capital.

As she started her career as a pianist in China, Yang fulfilled her dream to perform the Yellow River Piano Concerto in China. "Coincidentally, it took place in Fujian province, my ancestral home. It was also a charity performance for the Hope Project, so it was very meaningful for me," she says.

As her performance tours took her around the globe, Yang felt more classical pieces should be created to promote understanding among the foreign audiences about Chinese culture.

"China has a long history of literature, so I looked to the four great Chinese classical novels for inspiration," she says. She chose Dream of the Red Chamber, a love story which Yang says was more suitable for a female pianist.

The piano concerto Dream of the Red Chamber was jointly composed by Yang and Hungarian composer Gyula Fekete. It was completed in 2014 and has been performed both in and outside China. Yang later improved the arrangement of the piece and the new version was debuted in her Malaysian hometown, where she was accompanied by the China National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of renowned conductor Tang Muhai.

Spending most of her career in China, Yang is dedicating more of her time to promoting ties between China and Malaysia, both of which she now calls home.

Yang was born in 1974, the year Malaysia and China established diplomatic relations. Recently, she joined China's Guangxi Symphony Orchestra on a performance tour of Malaysia to mark the 45th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"Malaysia is close to China and the two countries cooperate across various fields," she says. "As a Malaysian and a Chinese daughter-in-law, I feel I need to do more to promote that."