Tracking Pianist Yuja Wang’s Heartbeats During Her Marathon Rachmaninoff Performance
The Carnegie Hall YouTube Channel sets the scene:
On January 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall for a once-in-a-lifetime, all-Rachmaninoff marathon that featured the composer’s four piano concertos plus his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” Throughout the performance, Wang—along with Nézet-Séguin, members of the orchestra, and concertgoers in attendance—wore devices to track their heartbeats.
Unprecedented and insanely demanding, Wang made history. These five pieces include two-and-a-half hours of music, 621 pages of score, and more than 97,000 piano notes.
How high did Wang’s heart rate go? We won’t provide spoilers. It plays out above.
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