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Albany Records has just released the piano concerto I premiered and recorded last December with the Grammy Award-winning Albany Symphony: Michael Torke’s Three Manhattan Bridges for Piano and Orchestra.

This week as Joyce Yang returns to the New York Philharmonic as soloist in five performances of Manuel de Falla’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” she recalled her first experience with the Orchestra in 2005. “A few months after the Cliburn Silver Medal was given to me, I was summoned to show up at Lincoln Center at 9 AM on Thanksgiving Day to play for Lorin Maazel, the Orchestra’s Music Director at the time…”

As winter turns to spring in New York City, Joyce Yang invites audiences into the lush gardens of Manuel de Falla’s musical imagination. She performs as soloist in five performances of the Spanish composer’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” with the New York Philharmonic, March 30-April 5. “It’s different from your usual piano concerto,” says Joyce. “Even though it’s in three movements, they don’t follow the traditional concerto form. It’s more like three brush strokes – and in the first seconds Falla tells us we’re in a totally different place.”

I sometimes wonder when I play a favorite piece like the Schumann Quintet with different quartets, am I cheating on the other groups? Because you come back and you’re a little changed. In a rehearsal they’ll say, “What are you doing?” And I realize, ooh, right, that’s someone else’s markings.

Joyce Yang is spending the week before Christmas in Albany unwrapping a new piano concerto by American composer Michael Torke. Three Manhattan Bridges for Piano and Orchestra was commissioned by the Albany Symphony and written expressly for Joyce as soloist. She gives the premiere performances with the ensemble under its music director and new music champion David Alan Miller on December 19 and 20. They will record the concerto on December 21 for future release on the Albany Records label.

Joyce Yang made her debut in the prestigious San Francisco Performances series on November 10 with the Alexander String Quartet in a program of not one, but three major piano quintets. The Alexanders and Joyce have a much-praised recording of the Brahms and Schumann Piano Quintets, which they included on the program, but according to San Francisco Classical Voice, it was Schnittke’s Piano Quintet that stole the show.