Cellist Jian Wang pairs up again with a fave partner, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider

When cellist Jian Wang returns to Chicago this fall, a longtime friend and collaborator will be on the podium: Danish conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider.

The cellist is especially glad to be collaborating again with Szeps-Znaider for concerts Oct. 22-25 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “We are really close friends, and we have actually performed together with many orchestras,” Wang said. 

Now 57, Wang is an internationally recognized soloist who has performed with many of the world’s top orchestras, including the London Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Cleveland Orchestra and France’s Orchestre National de Lyon, where Szeps-Znaider is music director. 

After first performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival in 2000, Wang made his CSO subscription series debut in 2023, again with Szeps-Znaider on the podium.

In an interview before that engagement, Wang said, “At my age, it’s really hard to think of anything as a debut. But the Chicago Symphony is one of the top orchestras in world, and any time you get to play with them, it’s very exciting, so I’m really looking forward to that.”

This time, Wang will be the soloist in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto. Also on the program are Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Suite and the overture to Nielsen’s opera Maskarade.

Music surrounded Wang from an early age. His father was a professional cellist and his mother a professional flutist. Despite the strictures of China’s Cultural Revolution, which closed music schools and suppressed other artistic activities from 1966 to 1976, Wang began cello lessons at age 4 with his father. After the Shanghai Conservatory of Music reopened, the young cellist began studies there, joining a flood of new students.

“Apparently, a lot of kids were able to learn instruments, and they auditioned for the conservatory,” he said. “I suppose, at least as far as classical music was concerned, the policy was much more relaxed during the end.”

At 10, Wang met acclaimed violinist Isaac Stern at the Shanghai Conservatory; some of their interactions were captured in “From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China” (1980), which featured an appearance of a talented young cellist named Jian Wang.

"The film was quite important historically, because China was really closed for a long time,” Wang said. “Nobody knew what China was like, so this was the first Western-made documentary about China.” Directed by Murray Lerner, the film, which is free to watch on the Tubi streaming service, won a 1981 Oscar for best documentary feature. 

Stern helped Wang, then 16, gain admittance to the Yale School of Music, where he began studying with Aldo Parisot. Wang later pursued a bachelor’s degree at the Juilliard School, but dropped out after three years, because he had many concert offers and was ready to devote himself to a full-time career. “The fact that I was a part of that film really helped me a lot when I went to the States,” he said. “People kind of knew who I was, so it helped to start playing concerts. It was very important.”

Later, Wang became the first Chinese artist to sign with Deutsche Grammophon, releasing in 1996 the first of his 11 studio albums, a recording of Brahms piano trios, on the prestigious label. His other DG releases include a 2005 set of the six milestone cello suites by J.S. Bach.

After living most recently in Europe, Wang saw his career come full circle, when he moved back to China in 2022 to take care of his aging parents and assume a music professorship at the Shanghai Conservatory, where he began his musical odyssey decades earlier.   

In June, Deutsche Grammophon released an 11-CD box set of Wang’s complete DG recordings. The edition includes a booklet with new liner notes, based on an extensive interview with Wang. The repertoire ranges from Couperin, Bach and Haydn to Boccherini, Mozart, Schumann and Brahms, as well as Fauré, Elgar, Sibelius and Messiaen. It also includes collaborations with acclaimed artists such as pianist Maria João Pires, violinist Gil Shaham and guitarist Göran Söllscher. 

This is an updated version of an article that was previously published on Experience CSO.