Tiffany Yeung (violin) – Michael Measures Prize

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Violinist Tiffany Yeung spent the 2023 summer touring with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, as the soloist for Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D major. This opportunity was a part of her win of the Michael Measures Prize, a recorded competition that recognizes a promising young musician participating in the NYO summer program. Named one of “CBC music’s 30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30” in 2023, Yeung has established herself as an emerging artist to watch this year.

Of the three pieces she recorded for the competition, Yeung was especially familiar with the Sarasate Carmen Fantasy, which she first played at age 12. “It is a very special piece to me,” she said, “because, in a way, it became ‘my piece.’ It was also the piece that I played when I made my debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at 13 years old, and that was a big moment for me.” Touring the Brahms has also been a defining experience for Yeung. “It was the most incredible and gratifying experience, sharing the stage with 80 of my friends,” she said. “What a cool feeling!” She and the NYO especially impressed Maritime audiences, for whom they played a Nordic folk song arranged by the Danish String Quartet. The piece began with Yeung alone on stage, her colleagues then joining her one at a time. She describes the experience as having been “epic.”

As she works toward the completion of her undergraduate degree, Yeung is no stranger to the intrinsic pressures of student life. She has spent recent years overcoming performance anxiety, and working to make positive changes in her community’s climate through music. “As a music student,” she said, “it’s so easy to get caught up in the nitty-gritty of the work and stress of it all, but putting that all aside, music is so truly beautiful. There is nothing that compares to it.”

In the coming year, Yeung will continue her studies at The Glenn Gould School with teachers Min-Jeong Koh and Erika Raum, where she will play on her instrument loan (a 1869 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin, with Vuillaume model bow), which she received as a laureate of the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank Competition. She hopes to one day teach violin to pre-college students, nurturing both her love of children, and of music.