about
Praised for her “lusty” sound by the Texas Classical Review, Brooklyn-based violinist Diane Yang lives for all kinds of music. She has performed internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, giving recitals from the Yunnan Institute of the Arts in China, Trinity Chapel in Cambridge, UK, to the Millenium Stage at the John F. Kennedy Center. Recently, she’s been on stage with Hillary Clinton, Andrew Bird, Laufey, Gil Shaham, Yo-Yo Ma, and given concerts at Carnegie Hall and across NYC with ensembles such as the Fort Greene Orchestra, Arcadia Symphony, Vivace Chamber Orchestra, and more.
An active recording violinist, Diane can be heard on a recent album session for the band Earthquake Lights, a music video of original works by violinist Layale Chaker with the Riwaya Ensemble, performed live recording concerts with the band Little Kruta, and recorded works for string quartet and soprano by Kaija Saariaho with the Glass Clouds Ensemble.
Hailing from a multigenerational musician family, Diane is energized by the boundaries that contemporary music can push. She has worked with composers such as Augusta Read Thomas, Lisa Heffter, Ahmed Alabaca, Daixuan Ai, Grace Ann Lee, her grandfather, Li-Hai Tao, and her father, Jie Yang. Inspired by her Chinese heritage and the patterns of migration, Diane works to unite and strengthen her communities through sharing music that speaks to cultural roots. This passion for community advocacy brought her to perform with the Crossing Borders String Quartet at the 2023 Arts Alliance Illinois Conference, and to program her grandfather’s music in her Civic Fellows Independent Project, partnering with Sistema Ravinia and We Each Belong to perform at multiple Chicago Public Schools.
Diane is a cofounder of the Continuum Chamber Collective–an ensemble organization dedicated to engaging and exciting programming born out of late night chamber reading sessions between friends. The Continuum quartet connected through the shared hunger to play underperformed music and has since served as the faculty string quartet in residency at the ArtsAhimsa Chamber Music Festival in Lenox, MA. The group has worked closely with Lisa Heffter and premiered her work Carbon Fiber String Quartet in NYC along with Jie Yang’s Sonata for Violin and Cello: Mountain Tunes and a Wild Dance. An avid chamber musician, Diane has performed with the Dover, Brodsky, and Argus String Quartets in addition to Steve Dann, Vera Beths, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.
As an orchestral player, Diane has performed under the baton of world-renowned conductors such as Ricardo Muti, Ken David-Masur, Hans Graf, Matthias Pintscher, Alan Pierson, Teddy Abrams, and Karina Canellakis. Diane has regularly played with the National Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and was offered a section position with the Auckland Philharmonic in 2025.
Diane has over a decade of experience teaching privately, starting from substituting for her mother’s violin studio in high school. During her master’s degree, Diane was the Graduate Teacher Assistant to Blair Milton’s studio, where she taught biweekly technique and repertoire lessons to the freshman class. Diane focuses on holistic pedagogy derived from tension free playing.
A seasoned performer from an early age, Diane won her first concerto competition on piano at age 8 at the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall as a Huntsville Young Artist Winner. At age 12, she made her violin solo debut with the Chesapeake Youth Orchestra; when she was 16, she performed Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G Minor with the Columbia Orchestra as a Young Artist Concerto Competition Award Winner. Since then, Diane has won prizes at the Phi Mu Alpha Contemporary American Music and the Miami Music Festival Concerto Competitions, amongst many others. Important mentors include Blair Milton, Rebecca Henry, and Matt Albert. Diane holds a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University, where she was often concertmaster and soloed with the Baroque String Ensemble. Diane received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan, where she was Assistant to the M-Prize Artistic Director, Dean’s Liaison, Vice President of Sigma Alpha Iota, Alpha, and graduated with university honors.