David Yang (violist)
David Yang is an American violist born in New York City.Biography
David Yang's principal 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, Vermeer 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 . 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, Andrea Clearfield, Daniel Dorff, Cynthia Folio, Jeremy Gill, Gerald Levinson, David Ludwig, Robert Maggio, Jay Reise, Kile Smith, Dmitri Tymoczko, Anna Weesner, and Andrew Waggoner. He is Director of the storytelling and music troupe, Auricolae, for which he composes music, and is a Musicopia roster artist. 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 the 19th-Century violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, best friend of Johannes Brahms. He records for the New Focus, Somm, and Avie labels.
His father was noted landscape photographer John Yang and his mother, Linda Gureasko Yang, was garden columnist for the New York Times. His sister was electric bass player Naomi Yang of the 90s cult alternative band Galaxie 500.
