Yue Yu

Yue Yu

Key Facts

  • Instrument: Viola

Biography

Yue Yu is a full scholarship student at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, studying with Dr Louise Lansdown. Yue was one of the five finalists in the 2017 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition where she performed Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher with orchestra and was awarded the Bishop Instruments and Bows Prize with a £5000 Guillaume bow for her outstanding performance of York Bowen’s Viola Sonata in C minor. Following the award, she was then in touch with the organiser of the 45th International Viola Congress, 2018. Now she is looking forward to playing a recital in Rotterdam as part of the congress in November, of a programme of Bowen’s music, including an unpublished piece.

Yue has received many good reviews, including a 5-star review of the concert memorializing the late Gwyn Williams (the former CBSO viola principal) where she performed Max Bruch’s Romanze with RBC String Orchestra conducted by Julian Lloyd Webber in Birmingham Town Hall. She was particularly mentioned in the review as the “richly-toned soloist” by Christopher Morley.

At the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Yue has won the Herbert Lumby Prize and the Etude Prize. In February 2019, as her major project in her final year at the conservatoire, she is going to give a performance of Bartók Viola Concerto, revised version, with Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra at the conservatoire’s Bradshaw Hall.

Yue is also passionate about chamber music. In July, she went to South Africa to attend the 2018 Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival. Later at Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival in Wales, as a member of Arcus Trio, they performed Brahms Clarinet Trio and Schumann Piano Quartet collaborated with violinist Krysia Osostowitz. She enjoyed playing with her string quartet group Fletcher Quartet, but sadly they disbanded in June 2018, but also always enjoys playing other types of chamber music such as violin viola duo and viola duos.

Yue has received many great masterclass opportunities with the like of Thomas Riebl, Nobuko Imai, Tatjana Masurenko, Ettore Causa, Martin Outram and Simon Rowland-Jones.

Yue currently plays on a viola which was made in 2015 by French luthier Antoine Gourdon, that won the International Viola Making Prize “Renaud Stahl in 2016, Paris”, and a modern golden mounted bow by P. Guillaume.

 

Musicians’ Company Award: Birmingham Silver Medal 2017

Page Updated: Oct 2018