Not every girl of twelve is able to walk off with the first prize at the International Tokyo Guitar Competition, and yet this is precise what Wang Yameng did in 1993, after barely two years of tuition. Wang Yameng was born in Quingdao, in the province of Shadong, in China. She inherited her love for the guitar from her father, an amateur guitarist. When she was six he gave her a small-size guitar as well as some guitar records to which she listened a great deal as a young child, especially those made by Chen Zhi. She displayed such talent that her parents enrolled her in the only conservatoire in Beijing to offer guitar lessons, given by none other than the renowned teacher Chen Zhin. He later declared her the most gifted and hardest working of all his pupils. In 1995 she attended a masterclass in Beijing by John Williams, who gave her his own guitar as a present, an instrument made by the Australian luthier Greg Smallman. It was on this guitar that Wang Yameng made her first recording for GHA. As well as making her mark in other international competitions such as Allessandria in 1995 and Madrid in 1996. Wang Yameng has given much acclaimed recitals in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Italy, France, Spain and, most recently (1999), in Australia.
Wang Yameng’s first CD, Caprice (GHA 126.047), made at the age of sixteen, comprises mainly original works for guitar by the principal guitar composers of the 19th century, the exception being a transcription of the Caprice by the violinist / guitarist Paganini. The pieces selected run from the Grand Solo by Fernando Sor (1778-1839) to El Delirio by Antonio Cano, by way of one the Rossiniane by Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), the Grand Solo by Napoléon Coste (1806-1883) and one of the Airs varié by Giulio Regondi (1822-1872), representing roughly a century of Romantic guitar music. The least known of thse composers is undoubtedly the Spanish Antonio Cano (1811-1897), a teacher at Madrid conservatoire and a collegue of Dionisio Aguado (1784-1849). Cano published a method for guitar in 1852, which was re-issued in 1868 accompanied by a treatise on harmony for the intrsument. El Delirio is just one of the hundred or so compositions and excercises that he bequeathed to posterity.
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