Acclaimed by the New York Times as "China's best pianist," Yin Chengzong, artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music, will give a solo concert at Beijing's Poly Theatre on Sunday.

The concert is expected to be a cross-cultural interpretation of the seasons of life.

Second-prize winner of the Tchaikovsky International Music Competition in Moscow in 1962, Yin will begin with one of his specialties - Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons."

To celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on September 21 this year, he will play the entire works featuring 12 months of a year to reveal the twists and turns in life.

In the second half, Yin will play Chinese classic music "Spring Night on a Moonlit River," "A Hundred Birds Sing a Hymn to the Phoenix," "Autumn Moon on the Smooth Lake" and "Plum Blossom Trilogy." The four pieces are meant to respectively reflect the four seasons in a Chinese manner.

Born in 1941 on China's "Island of Piano" - Gulangyu in Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province - Yin gave his first recital at age nine. Three years later, he entered pre-college at the Shanghai Conservatory and then transferred to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

Yin later travelled to Russia to study with Tatiana Kravchenko and graduated from Leningrad Conservatory.

Aside from the Tchaikovsky Competition, he has won numerous awards, including the gold medal at the World Youth Peace and Friendship Festival held in Vienna in 1959.

He has since become a legend in the music world and one of four Chinese musicians who are listed in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians published in 1980.

In 1983 he left China for the United States. His Carnegie Hall debut was reviewed by Bernard Holland with the New York Times as "absolutely beautiful command of piano colour." He has returned four times there as a soloist.

Through the years Yin has travelled worldwide, performing with a number of prestigious orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

Yin is not only a virtuoso interpreter of Western masters, he is also a composer of highly renowned piano pieces.

His piano interpretations of traditional Peking Opera and other classic Chinese music, combined with his contribution to the "Yellow River Concerto," which was arranged from Xian Xinghai's famous "Yellow River Cantata," have made him a household name in China.

In 2000, Yin started a concert tour for the 50th anniversary of his musical career at Boston's Jordan Hall. The impact of his splendid music was described as the "Yin Chengzong Tornado" in the Boston area.

This October, Yin will return to his hometown of Xiamen, as President of the Fourth Tchaikovsky International Competition for the Young Pianists held in China for the first time.

( China Daily September 17, 2002)