Feature: Oboe in hand, Chinese American musician strives to ignite passion for wind music

by Xinhua writer Zhu Lei

NEW YORK, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Dressed in black suit, Liang Wang, the principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic, handled Richard Strauss's Oboe Concerto with a candied tone at the David Geffen Hall of Lincoln Center on Tuesday night.

It is the last of four consecutive concerts featuring Wang as a concerto soloist. Around him on stage are some of the world's most experienced orchestra players.

"From no soloist in recent memory have we heard the expression, emotional content, technical mastery, fluidity of technique that we have heard tonight. The Strauss Oboe Concerto is a great piece -- Wang made it greater," said Philip Myers, who joined the New York Philharmonic as Principal Horn in 1980, the year when Wang was born.

The concerto is the one Wang performed for his solo debut after he attained the highly-coveted post of the principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic in 2006. At the age of 26, he became the first Chinese Principal Oboe of the prestigious philharmonic and also the youngest one in the history of the orchestra since 1842.

Successful and famed as he is, Wang is modest. "It's rare for the philharmonic to put on four concerts. I appreciate their trust in me," he said before the concerts at his Manhattan apartment. "I think I am more mature musically now. Can't say it's better because a different age has different things good about the particular era."

In the past 10 years, besides a heavily weekly dose of four concerts at the philharmonic and endless hours painstakingly carving reeds from cane, the Chinese-born musician has found an inner call to promote the double-reed instrument he plays and the orchestral wind section.

"I have a deep feeling that I represent wind music. It is my responsibility to make more people know about it. Interest arises only after there's familiarity with the instrument," said Wang, whom The New York Times dating back to 2006 called the "Pilgrim with an oboe, Citizen of the World."

BRING HIS DREAM AND PASSION TO WIND MUSIC