NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State University faculty member Francis Yang will present a piano recital on Thursday, Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public. A livestream will be available at capa.nsula.edu/livestream. 

Yang, an associate professor of piano, received a Magale Professorship for the 2022-23 academic year which allowed him to record the “24.5 Preludios para piano,” by Ecuadorean composer Arturo Rodas.  He performed the set in Cuenca and Quito, Ecuador, in March 2023, and helped Rodas edit the original score. Yang will perform the Preludios this Thursday   

Yang has performed in cities such as London, Paris, Montreal, Vancouver, Buenos Aires, Quito and Montevideo at events such as the 37th International Festival Encuentros in Buenos Aires, London’s Royal Academy of Music and the VIII Bienal of Contemporary Music in Cuenca, Ecuador. He has played with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Cuenca and the Natchitoches-Northwestern Symphony. Yang has participated and played in numerous music festivals including the Mozarteum Sommerakademie (Salzburg, Austria), the Orford Music Festival (Magog, Quebec), the Gulbenkian International Music Festival (Lisbon, Portugal) and the March International Music Days Festival (Ruse, Bulgaria). 

He has given master classes in Ecuador, Argentina, Singapore, Canada and throughout the U.S. He has been invited to serve as adjudicator for competitions both nationally and internationally, including the Ars Nova International Piano Competition (Singapore), the Seattle International Piano Competition and as preliminary juror for the Louisiana International Piano Competition.  

Prior to his appointment at Northwestern State, Yang served for four years as faculty at the Universidad de Cuenca, in Cuenca. Yang also taught at the Université de Montréal, the University of Ottawa and the University of Alberta as adjunct professor and teaching assistant. Yang received his doctorate from the Université de Montréal, his master’s from the University of Kansas and a bachelor’s from the University of Michigan, and studied with pianists Stephane Lemelin, Richard Angeletti, Sequeira Costa and Robert Rogers.