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music’s fastest rising stars, but the relationship ended earlier this year). She admits that she stopped playing the piano entirely during the city’s pandemic lockdown in 2020. “I promised myself to only practise when I wanted to,” she says, “and then I didn’t want to for 15 months!” Instead, she claims, “I just pigged out and watched Netflix. I let my brain drift into stupid movies. I loved the first half of that year, but after six months I got sick of just taking care of myself. Taking showers and feeding myself. I became so conscious of being human, and – asking existential questions.” On stage, the trivialities of survival fall away from her. “People ask why I play for so long, go back for so many encores,” she says. “Some of that is for my fans, but some of it is for me, because when I’m playing like that I’m in a space where I forget everything but the music. It’s hard for me to stop. Like those astronauts on the Moon who didn’t want to stop bouncing around in zero gravity.” When it comes to selecting the programme like the one in Edinburgh last year, Wang tells me she is sifting through “a whole list of 30 pieces. When I think about them, I imagine fairy tales, drama, tranquility, revenge...I put them together like emotional journeys. The piano exists mostly in the imagination and I do what I feel like.” As she hops up from her chair, excited about her imminent reunion with Hockney, I ask Wang about her future career goals and she suggests she’d like to do more simultaneous playing and conducting. “I’ve done a little already and I loved it,” she says, then a cheeky smile pings across her face. “It was like doing it with the condom off!” Where virtuosity meets craftsmanship: Yuja Wang often plays on a Steinway & Sons Model D (D‑274) in some high‑level performances masterpiece. Photo/Steinway & Sons