Biography
Yue Yu was born in China in 1997. She started having violin lessons since she was six years old and switched to the viola at the age of twelve. She went to the Music School affiliated to Xinghai Conservatory of Music at the age of 15 and studied viola with Professor Hou, Donglei. In 2015, She moved to England and spent four years in Birmingham, studying with Louise Lansdown for her BMus (Hons) degree of viola performance at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where she graduated in 2019. She is now studying for her master's degree at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg with Professor Thomas Riebl.
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Yue has received many great masterclass opportunities with Thomas Riebl, Nobuko Imai, Tatjana Masurenko, Ettore Causa, Martin Outram and Simon Rowland-Jones. In 2022 she was a participant in the masterclass of IMS Prussia Cove and was invited to play at the Open Chamber Music Festival in the autumn of the same year. Besides that, she receives a scholarship from the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein and participates in the intensive music weeks held there.
Yue was one of the five finalists in the 2017 “Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition”. At the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire she won the “Herbert Lumby Prize” and the “Etude Prize”. She is also winner of the “Stockport International Young Musicians Competition” 2019, and mostly recently she won the 1st prize of the “Paul Hindemith Viola Concorso” (2021) in Salzburg
Yue has also attended several chamber music festivals, such as Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival, Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival and Ulverston Music Festival. She thoroughly enjoyed the collaborations with renowned musicians such as violinist Krysia Osostowicz and the Primrose Piano Quartet. She had been a member of the Constanze Quartet based in Salzburg from November 2019 to April 2020, which had toured to Spain and received great feedbacks.
As a chamber musician and viola soloist, she has performed in some of the remarkable concert venues internationally, like Symphony Hall, Town Hall, Bradshaw Hall in Birmingham, Wigmore Hall in London, Stockport Town Hall, Cheltenham Town Hall, Solitär Hall in Salzburg as well as in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and China.
Yue recorded her debut solo album with Naxos Label in 2020, collaborating also with pianist Anthony Hewitt and with her long-term chamber music partner, violinist Jeffrey Armstrong.
She currently plays on a viola which was made in 2015 by the French luthier Antoine Gourdon and a modern golden mounted bow by P. Guillaume.