Pianist Tianshu Wang frequently gets showered in superlatives for her disciplined musicianship that has led her to performances nearly around the globe.
But she laughingly acknowledged that, away from the keyboard, her fingers still are learning other talents, including baking delicacies such as tiramisu.
“Sometimes, I am very very successful,” she said, speaking from her office at the Capital Conservatory of Music in Columbus, Ohio. “And sometimes I fail.”
Baking might be the only component of life in which she has missed being the best. Looking back, in 2011 she earned the Praestantia Award for Distinguished Teaching, the university’s highest honor.
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And looking ahead, she will perform her first solo date at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York City come November.
She brings that technical excellence — along with a healthy humility — to Saturday’s concert, “Chinese New Year,” with the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic.
Wang, 46, will perform, “Yellow River Concerto,” a four-movement work composed in 1969 about the Chinese cultural revolution that made way for Western music, among other elements, to be embraced in her native land. Before that, any influence from the West was forbidden.
“I feel so fortunate to be so free (musically),” Wang said, while still appreciating her artistic heritage.
She has played the work only three times in the United States, including once with Philharmonic music director David Bowden about a decade ago in his additional role as leader of the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra.
“This piece is very close to my heart,” she said of the music that came from old folk tunes. “And it’s like it has filled a hole in the heart of the (Chinese) people. I myself lived in some of that atmosphere and experienced part of that change.”
Bowden referred to the concerto as “that lovely, big, romantic, juicy sound that’s just gorgeous.”
Wang has graced concert stages in the United States, China, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan. Besides teaching at Capital, Wang is a professor and chair of the Piano Department at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China, where she works for three months every summer.
She arrived in the United States 23 years ago as a graduate student in music. Now married with two boys, ages 12 (a pianist and clarinet player) and 15 (a pianist and an accomplished percussionist), she has acclimated well enough to a new culture to pay attention to college sports in the football-crazed headquarters for Ohio State University.
“Everything here is about the Buckeyes,” she said.
She wants to give her own children a disciplined, musical foundation without stealing the joy of music that still pushes her to play.
“I can be a tiger mom,” she said with a laugh of overzealous parenting. “No matter what, they have to bring home good grades and they have to practice.”
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Who: Chinese-born pianist Tianshu Wang performing the four-part, “Yellow River Concerto” with the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic in a performance, “Celebrating the Chinese New Year.”
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Judson Erne Auditorium, 1400 25th St., Columbus.
Tickets: $5 to $45.
Pre-concert chat: Musically Speaking discussion with David Bowden, Columbus Indiana Philharmonic music director and pianist Tianshu Wang at 6:40 p.m.
Also on tap: The orchestra will perform Gioachino Rossini’s “Overture to the Silken Ladder,” and Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.”
Information and tickets: 812-376-2638 or thecip.org.
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