KUCHING: American organist Janet Yieh will hold an organ recital at St Thomas’ Cathedral, Jalan McDougall here on Jan 6 at 8pm. The recital is part of Yieh’s ‘Asian Concert Tour’, which will also see her performing at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kowloon, Hong Kong and Pintung Concert Hall in Taiwan.
Among the pieces that Yieh will play for the recital here are ‘Now Thank We All Our God’ from Cantata 79 by Johann Sebastian Bach, ‘Pieces de Fantaisie’ Op. 53 Clair de Lune by Louis Vierne, as well as her own composition ‘Taiwanese Fantasy’.
Tickets priced at RM10 each are available from the Cathedral’s Parish Office (082242625), Evelyn Lim (0168690480), or Clara Voon (0128899739). Yieh graduated from The Juilliard School with a Bachelor of Music in 2015 and Yale University School of Music with a Master of Music in Organ Performance this year. She is currently pursuing her Master of Musical Arts with Prof Thomas Murray at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music.
Yieh serves as organ scholar at Christ Church, New Haven, as well as organist and choral conductor for Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. Her former posts include organ scholar at Trinity on the Green, New Haven and assistant organist at Trinity Church on Wall Street, New York.
Named by French classical music magazine ‘Diapason’ as one of its ‘20 under 30’ this year, Yieh also won the 2015 Franciscan Monastery & DC AGO Young Organist Competition and the 2015 Northern Virginia Quimby Competition. Highlights of her performances around the United States include Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, the Cathedral of St John the Divine, St Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, Washington National Cathedral, Harvard University and Yale University.
In Asia, Yieh has performed at Aletheia University in Taipei, Taiwan, as well as St Agnes Cathedral in Kyoto and Momoyama University in Osaka, Japan. As a collaborator, she has accompanied the Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center and NOVUS NY orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and premiered new music for the organ.
Yieh’s playing has been broadcast on Pipedreams, New York’s WQXR and WWFM and featured on two CD recordings: ‘Celebrating the Skinner Organ’ (Schott), and ‘Julian Wachner: Symphony No. 1, Works for Orchestra and Voices’ (Musica Omnia/Naxos).
A pianist from age four and violinist from seven, Yieh began organ lessons at 11. She is a member of the Association of Anglican Musicians and a certified Colleague of the American Guild of Organists. Her former teachers include Paul Jacobs, John Walker, and Ruei-Hwa Shyu.
