David Yang (violist)

David Yang (born 1967) is an American violist born in New York City.

Biography

David Yang’s principle studies were with Martha Strongin Katz, Heidi Castleman, Karen Ritscher, and Stephen Wyrczynski. He is known mainly as a chamber musician and has collaborated with members of ensembles such as the Tokyo String Quartet, Brentano String Quartet, Borromeo String Quartet, Cassatt String Quartet, Miro String Quartet, and Trio Solisti, Trio Cavatina, and Eroica Piano Trio. In 2009 he received an artist fellowship from the Independence Foundation in Philadelphia, PA awarded to a small number of “exceptional artists.” Yang is Director of Chamber Music at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in addition to Artistic Director of the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival. As a founding member of the string trio Ensemble Epomeo he has performed throughout Europe, Canada, and the USA. An advocate for new music, he has commissioned and premiered works by over twenty composers including Robert Capanna, Daniel Dorff, Jeremy Gill, Gerald Levinson, David Ludwig, Kile Smith, Dmitri Tymoczko, Anna Weesner, and Andrew Waggoner. He is also Director of the storytelling and music troupe, Auricolae. He also holds a Master’s degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and worked in the atelier of Aldo Rossi and for Hugh Hardy.

Yang plays a viola made by the viola da gamba maker Johannes Tielka in 1670 and originally owned by friend of Johannes Brahms, Joseph Joachim.

His father was noted landscape photographer John Yang and his mother, Linda Gureasko Yang, was garden columnist for the New York Times. His sister is electric bass player Naomi Yang of the 90’s cult alternative band Galaxie 500.

References

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/performance/ensembles/chamber/musdir.html

External links

• Ensemble Epomeo profile
• Auricolae profile
• Newburyport Chamber Music Festival
• John Yang, photographer