Triple-prized winner of the 2013 Lionel Tertis Competition, including Yuri Bashmet’s President Of The Jury Prize, Taiwanese-born Canadian Chieh-Fan Yiu has established himself as one of the most exciting young violists on the international stage today.
As a recipient of the coveted Jerome L. Greene Fellowship, Dr. Yiu completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Juilliard, followed by Doctorate degree from Stony Brook University, having studied under Toby Appel, Heidi Castleman, Hsin-Yun Huang, as well as the great Emerson Quartet. He has also studied closely with Karen Dreyfus, Kim Kashkashian, Masao Kawasaki, Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot, and Robert Vernon.
On top of winning the Stony Brook Concerto Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, and UBC Concerto Competition, Mr. Yiu has also won top prizes from Lionel Tertis Competition, Hellam Young Artist Competition, Lima Symphony Competition, as well as receiving the Best Viola Performance Award in Kingsville International Competition.
As a chamber musician, Mr. Yiu has toured the world in festivals such as Sounds of Lyons, Music@Menlo, Moritzburg, Verbier, Aspen, and Sarasota Music Festivals, as well as having the pleasure of becoming a founding member of the Ben Feng Music Festival in Taiwan, a chamber music series currently in its third season that has been recently hailed as a “classical music gem” by Liberty Times. He has collaborated with such esteemed artists as Thomas Bergen, Colin Carr, David Cohen, Nicholas Cords, Pedro R. Díaz, Alan Kay, Tessa Lark, Frank Morelli, Alfredo Muro, Paul Neubauer, Daniel Phillips, Sasha Sitkovetsky, Josu De Solaun, Carol Wincenc, as well as Volta Piano Trio and the Emerson Quartet.
Mr. Yiu’s performances has led him to venues such as Chan Center, Orpheum Theatre, and Michael J. Fox Theatre in Vancouver, Canada; Auditorio Ciudad de León, Cine Albéniz, Museo Interactivo de la Musica, Teatro Cervantes, and Teatro Echegaray in Spain; Salle Médran, Salle Vallésia, and Église in Verbier, Switzerland; Sondershausen's Palace Garden, Bad Elster's King Albert Theatre, and Dresden's Volkswagen Die Gläserne Maufaktur in Germany; Cherry Orchard and Erin Arts Center in Isle of Man, UK; Nichols Concert Hall in Chicago, IL; Menlo-Atherton, Stent Hall, Martin Hall, and Irvine Valley College Performing Arts Center in California; Merkin Hall @ Kaufmann Music Center, Signature Theater, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Historical Society, Church of Heavenly Rest, Barnes Hall @ Cornell University, Old Stone House, BAM Fisher, South Oxford Space, and Staller Center of Performing Arts in New York; Paul Hall, Morse Hall, Alice Tully Hall, David Geffen Hall, David H. Koch Theater, and Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center; and Weill Recital Hall, Zankel Hall, and Stern Auditorium in Carnegie Hall.
Media coverage of Mr. Yiu’s performances and interviews include Music@Menlo Live, WQXR New York, WSHU Public Radio, WLIO-NBC News Lima; medici.tv’s broadcast of Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland; In Our Time Radio Cafe, Liberty Times, Ministry of Culture, TTNews, and CTS News in Taiwan, Talentvision and Fairchild Television in Vancouver; and BBC News in the UK. Mr. Yiu’s live recording of Nataliya Medvedovskaya’s Fantasy for Viola and Piano can be heard on WQXR and ArkivMusic.
Throughout his career, Mr. Yiu is grateful to have been under the influence of such an array of artists: He has performed in masterclasses for Misha Amory, Yuri Bashmet, James Dunham, Gilad Karni, Daniel Panner, Daniel Phillips, Maxim Rysanov, Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot, Steve Tenenbaum, Lars-Anders Tomter, Geraldine Walther, and Barbara Westphal; chamber music coachings with Nancy Allen, Theodore Arm, Jane Coop, Glenn Dicterow, David Dolan, Pamela Frank, Wu Han, Gilbert Kalish, Soovin Kim, Laurence Lesser, Teng Li, Jerome Lowenthal, Curtis Macomber, Nicholas Mann, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Paul Neubauer, Matti Raekallio, Rena Sharon, Rohan De Silva, Jan Vogler, Eric Wilson, Carol Wincenc, Jasper Wood, as well as Emerson and Pacifica Quartets.
As an orchestral musician, Mr. Yiu held principal viola positions in Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, Moritzburg Festival Orchestra, Sarasota Music Festival Orchestra, UBC Chamber Orchestra, and Art Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with Milal Ensemble, Olympus Chamber Symphony, and New York Classical Players, performing under the baton of conductors such as Roberto Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, David Atherton, James Conlon, James DePriest, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, Andrew Litton, Nicholas McGegan, Alondra de la Parra, Andre Previn, Joseph Silverstein, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and David Zinman. Mr. Yiu is currently a regular substitute for the New York City Ballet.
Continued involvement with education outreach programs has led Mr. Yiu to lecture and perform in New York Public Library's Morrisania Branch, BC Children's Hospital in Canada, as well as performances in Selby Public Library in Florida, the Discovery Program for children in Verbier Festival, the Family Concert (with story-telling/music segments) in Dresden's Volkswagen Die Gläserne Maufaktur with the Moritzburg Festival, music education and therapy programs in Taiwan with Ben Feng Festival, and mentorship with selected young performers in Music@Menlo’s Young Performers Program.
