All Over Albany

Yuja Wang at the Massry Center

Here's something to get things moving on this dreary morning: pianist Yuja Wang playing "Flight of the Bumblebee." It is freakish.

Wang is playing the Massry Center at St. Rose this Saturday night. Tickets are $35.

It should be quite a performance. YouTube is full of clips of the 24-year-old Wang playing -- and people completely plotzing over what they just watched. As a person commented on a clip of Wang playing an arrangement of Mozart's Turkish march backstage before a concert: "Her fingers have fingers." The commenter may not be wrong.

Yuja Wang seems to have fully embraced being a classical rockstar. For a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in August, she wore a dress you'd probably expect more from a popstar (we would argue she pulled it off rather well). It prompted a critic for the LA Times to snark:

Her dress Tuesday was so short and tight that had there been any less of it, the Bowl might have been forced to restrict admission to any music lover under 18 not accompanied by an adult. Had her heels been any higher, walking, to say nothing of her sensitive pedaling, would have been unfeasible. The infernal helicopters that brazenly buzz the Bowl seemed, on this night, like long-necked paparazzi wanting a good look.

The review prompted calls of sexism. Noted a critic for the Washington Post:

Let's have a reality check for a minute. Yes, the dress is short, tight, and revealing. But in the real world -- the world outside classical music's still-prurient bubble -- this is not unusual attire for a young rising starlet in the public eye.

As with any modern star, Wang is on Twitter. Oh, and she says she'd like to play with Lady Gaga.

This at least the second time Wang has made a stop in the Capital Region. She played at SPAC in 2008 -- to rave reviews.