February 10, 2026
Ramsey Concert Hall, UGA Performing Arts Center
Athens, Georgia – USA
Haochen Zhang, piano.
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101
Robert SCHUMANN: Sonata No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 11
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
Robert SCHUMANN: Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17
Mark Gresham | 11 FEB 2025
Pianist Haochen Zhang, international career was launched with his gold-medal victory at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. On Tuesday evening, Zhang performed a solo recital at the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center in Athens, Georgia, with a program devoted to Beethoven and Schumann that balanced structural exploration with Romantic breadth.
Born in Shanghai and trained at the Curtis Institute of Music, Zhang has developed a reputation for combining formidable technique with a thoughtful, architecturally minded approach to large-scale works. That perspective was evident throughout Tuesday’s recital in UGA-PAC’s intimate 330-seat Ramsey Concert Hall. Heard as a whole, the program traced a quiet dialogue between Beethoven’s late inward style and Schumann’s Romantic response to it — two composers whose music demands both intellectual focus and expressive range.
The evening opened with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101, with its compressed forms and searching lyricism, marking the composer’s transition into the visionary style of his late period. Zhang shaped the opening movement with an emphasis on its inward, searching character, allowing the music’s shifting tonal colors and fragmentary motifs to emerge naturally. The march-like second movement brought firmer rhythmic definition, while the introduction to the finale unfolded with a sense of suspended time before resolving into the fugue, whose interweaving lines were articulated with clarity and momentum.
Schumann’s Sonata No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 11 followed, its restless energy and abrupt contrasts providing a striking change of tone. Zhang conveyed the music’s mercurial character, navigating rapid shifts between impetuous, storm-driven passages and more lyrical episodes. In the Aria, he drew out the long melodic lines with a singing tone, while the scherzo and finale emphasized the sonata’s propulsive drive and virtuosic demands.
After intermission came Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110, one of the most introspective and structurally unified of the late sonatas. Zhang gave particular attention to the work’s long expressive arc, shaping the opening movement with a sense of calm lyricism and allowing the scherzo’s rustic humor to emerge without exaggeration. In the final movement, the alternation of recitative-like passages, lamenting arioso, and fugal writing unfolded with a measured inevitability, the gradual rebuilding of texture and energy lending the conclusion a quiet sense of resolution rather than overt triumph.
The recital closed with Schumann’s Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17, a work of expansive gestures and deeply personal expression. Zhang approached the opening movement with a broad dynamic range, balancing turbulent climaxes against passages of hushed intimacy. The central march moved forward with steady momentum, and the final movement unfolded at a pace that allowed its long, arching phrases to resonate fully, bringing the program to a contemplative close.
Ramsey Concert Hall is the more intimate of the two principal venues at the UGA Performing Arts Center. Its warm wood interior and relatively shallow stage create a notably immediate acoustic, in which the attack of each note and the decay of harmonies can be heard with unusual clarity—qualities that make the hall particularly well suited to solo piano recitals like this one. The scale of the room invites a level of close listening.
Zhang returned to the stage to play a familiar encore: Robert Schumann’s “Träumerei”—No. 7 from his Kinderszenen, Op. 15 and one of his most famous lyrical piano miniatures ever, tenderly capping a fabulous, substantive recital of emotional range that thoroughly won over the audience. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Haochen Zhang: haochenzhang.com
- University of Georgia Performing Arts Center: pac.uga.edu
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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