ABOUT
Hailed by CBC Music as one of Canada’s finest young musicians, pianist Tony Yike Yang first rose to international acclaim at the age of 16 after becoming the youngest-ever laureate in the history of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, winning the 5th prize in 2015. Additionally, Yang has also won prizes at the Van Cliburn, Gina Bachauer, Hilton Head, Cooper, and the Bosendorfer & Yamaha USASU International Piano Competitions.
As a soloist, Yang has performed internationally in venues such as Koerner Hall in Toronto, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Warsaw National Philharmonic, Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Millennium Amphitheatre in Dubai, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Athenaeum in Bucharest, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Seoul Arts Center, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Osaka Symphony Hall, Sala Chopin in Mexico City, Sala Sudasiri Sohba in Bangkok, Esplanade Singapore, the Opera House in Guangzhou, and many others.
Concerto highlights include appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, Orchestre Métropolitain, Fort Worth Symphony, Ontario Philharmonic, Toronto Sinfonietta, Edmonton Symphony, Saskatoon Symphony, Changsha Symphony, and the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra.
An avid chamber musician, Yang has collaborated with celebrated artists such as Geza-Hosszu Legocky, Lyda Chen-Argerich, Barry Shiffman, Dumitru Pocitari, and Rodin Moldovan.
Yang has also performed for royalty and dignitaries such as Her Royal Highness Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Polish President Andrzej Duda, among others.
His debut album of works by Chopin was released on the Fryderyk Chopin Institute label in 2016.
In 2018, Yang was appointed Youth Cultural Ambassador to the city of Guangzhou, and accepted a one-year position as an artistic tutor for Sun-Yat-Sen University. Two years later, Yang was also offered a three-year appointment as Music Consultant to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. Upon accepting these roles, Yang has been passionately committed to advancing and encouraging classical music education for youth all across China, having given masterclasses and lecture-recitals at the Xinghai, Harbin, and Shanghai Conservatories, among others.
Born in Chongqing and raised in Toronto, Yang is a recent graduate of Harvard University where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. He is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Ingesund Piano Center in Sweden under the guidance of Prof. Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist, and in the past, was a fellow at the Oberlin-Lake Como International Piano Academy. His present and past musical advisors have included renowned musical figures such as Gabriela Montero, Eliso Virsaladze, Stephen Hough, Martha Argerich, Dang Thai Son, Mari Kodama, and James Anagnoson.
Apart from his performances and ongoing studies, he has also served on the jury of nearly a dozen competitions, including ones such as the Canada International Piano Competition, Nordic International Piano Competition, Piano Island Festival Malaysia, the Hong Kong International Music Festival, and the Steinway Canada Young Artists Piano Competition.
In recent years, Yang has also been a recipient of the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Award, the Robert Levin Prize in Musical Performance at Harvard University, and the Ingesund Piano Center Scholarship.
