Xiaoqing Yu, a biography
Assistant Professor of Music, violin, viola, chamber music
School of Music, LeeUniversity
A native of China and a graduate of Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, Mr. Xiaoqing Yu came to the United States in 1986. Soon after, he received Manhattan School of Music Scholarship to further his graduate studies there under the tutelage of prominent violin professor Rafael Bronstein. While at the ManhattanSchool, he served as Co-Principal Second Violin of the National Orchestra and performed in numerous concert halls, including Carnegie concert hall and recital hall, and LincolnCenter. Before coming to the United States, he performed throughout China with various groups, including the National Symphony.
Mr. Yu is now in his sixth year as Assistant Professor of Music teaching violin, viola, chamber music, and serving as director of the Lee University Chamber Strings at the School of Music at LeeUniversity in Tennessee, and his eighteenth season as Concertmaster of Greenville Symphony. He also performs in the summers with the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra in New York.
Prior to joining the Greenville Symphony, he served as Principal Second Violinist of the American Chamber Orchestra, performing in over one hundred European cities. Before his appointment at LeeUniversity, he performed regularly with the Charlotte Symphony and with chamber music groups, and also served as Concertmaster and artistic consultant of the Charlotte Civic Orchestra, and on the violin faculty of CharlotteSchool of the Arts. Other engagements have included teaching at FurmanUniversity and at the South Carolina Governor's School of the Arts. Over the years, he has performed with various chamber music groups in Europe and Canada, and has worked closely with members of the Cleveland and Emerson String Quartets. He was a featured performer on New York's famed classical radio station WQXR, as well as on Philadelphia's classical station WFLN, both of which were broadcast live nationwide on prime time.
In 2006, Mr. Yu was appointed Artistic Director of A.P.E.I. International Summer Music and Arts Festival in China, which engages world-renowned performers and artists. In this capacity, he has given lectures in seven provinces and fifteen music schools, universities,
and conservatories in China. He was appointed senior advisor and liaison in 2007 for the Xi'An PeiHua International Center for the Arts and Culture Education Exchange in Xi'An, China. The Center engages scholars, artists, musicians, and music faculty worldwide. Mr. Yu has won immense popularity for his annual China tour performances, including the benefit concert for the BeijingNationalAquaticCenter for Beijing's 2008 Olympic Games.
In the summer of 2008, he toured fifteen cities in China, coaching chamber music and working with Chinese musicians to promote musical and cultural exchanges between the United States and China. A summer masterclass tour in 2009 brought Mr. Yu to thirteen cities in the Asia-Pacific region including Hong Kong and Singapore. In 2009, Mr. Yu joined an Atlanta based string quartet with which he premiered David Sartor’s Passages in Cincinnati, and toured Mexico to perform at the famed Palomar International Music Festival. Mr. Yu also gave masterclass at the conservatoire de musica de Chihuahua. With this string quartet, Mr. Yu will tour Central and South America in summer 2010.
Mr. Yu has won second prize at Atlanta Pro-Mozart Society's Young Artist Competition, first prize at the University of South Carolina Concerto-Aria Competition, and an Honorary Award from the Young Artist Competition. As a soloist, he has performed Mozart's Violin Concerti No. 1, 3, 4 and 5, as well as works by Bruch, Saint-Saëns, Wieniawski, Vieuxtemps, Vivaldi, and Piazzola with various symphony orchestras. His recordings include Six Violin Sonatas by Rossini; Janácek's Suite for String Orchestra; Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" String Quartet; and Schoenberg's Transfigured Night on a Swiss label the “Clave” with American Chamber Orchestra, with which, Mr. Yu served as principal second violinist and performed in over 100 major European cities, including Barcelona, Madrid, Luxembourg, Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Florence, Sienna, among others.