Julie Yuqing Ye
ABOUT
Julie Yuqing Ye is an Oslo-based classical pianist, celebrated for her versatile work as both a soloist and chamber musician. She has performed at notable venues such as the Norwegian Opera & Ballet, Oslo Concert Hall, the Munch Museum, University Aula in Oslo, as well as Wigmore Hall, Draper's Hall, and Milton Court Concert Hall in London.
When she was eight years old, she was admitted to Unge Talenter, a program for young and talented musicians at Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo, and started studying with Einar Steen-Nøkleberg. In 2018 she completed her Artist Diploma (Diplomstudiet) at the Norwegian Academy of Music, together with a masters degree in Music Performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Throughout her studies, Julie worked with prominent teachers, including Marianna Shirinyan, Håvard Gimse, Charles Owen, Katya Apekisheva, and spent an exchange term at the Claudio Monteverdi Conservatorio in Bolzano, studying with Alessandra Georgia Brustia.
Her festival appearances include Oslo Chamber Music Festival, Oxford Philomusica Piano Festival, Beijing International Music Festival and Academy, International Summer Academy Mozarteum, Hardanger Musikkfest, Trondheim Kammermusikkfestival and Valdres sommersymfoni.
Julie’s performances have been broadcast on channels like NRK, TV2, and Bayerischer Rundfunk. Notable television appearances include NRK's Grieg Minutt for Minutt (2018) and the show Meisterklasse (2012) alongside Leif Ove Andsnes. She has also collaborated with musicians from the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (Kringkastingsorkesteret) and the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra.
In recent years, Julie has been passionate about bringing classical music to broader audiences. She has been involved in children's concerts, tours in care homes, and has produced several cross-disciplinary performances. Her interest in rarely performed works is reflected in her debut album From the Archives, which features rediscovered gems such as the piano sonatas of Pauline Hall and Geirr Tveitt.
Alongside her performance career, Julie teaches at Barratt Due Institute of Music and serves as a mentor and coach at Nasjonalt Klavertiltak, a talent program for young Norwegian pianists.
julie.y.ye
duofutt
Photo: Håvard Ringsevjen
More about me
and current projects
I was born in 1992 in Germany. My parents are Chinese, but I have lived most of my life in Norway, apart from five adventurous college years in London and a beautiful term in Italy. My first name has French pronunciation, which is a bit random.
It was in Kiel that I started playing the piano. I was four years old, listening to a piano concert played by children. Amazed and very excited, I left my seat during the concert to walk on stage and "play with the other kids". Luckily, my mum stopped me and explained that I had to learn how to play first. So I got a tiny pink keyboard, then a piano teacher, then a proper piano...
And that was the beginning.
I have always considered myself incredibly fortunate with the musicians I have been able to study with. From the beginning my first piano teachers Dorina Santa, Synøve Løchen, and my violin teacher Sissel M. Barth taught me how to play and love music, but also supported and cheered for me in a way that made me dream about becoming a professional musician.
An important reason that made me as a teenager decide to pursue a music degree was the friends I made through chamber music and festivals. Touring the country with groups like Gullfiskene, spending summers at music courses around the world and meeting people with the same passion as me were experiences that made full time music studies a natural choice after high school.
In 2017 I played Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.1 as part of my diploma exam at the Norwegian Music Academy together with the academy orchestra, Karl Heinz-Steffens and trumpet player Camilla Simensen. This concert, as well as my final master recital in Milton Court Concert Hall in London marked the end of a long education towards realising my childhood dream.
Current projects
I am still very passionate about chamber music, as well as cross art collaborations. One of the my recent collabs is the concert lecture "Music and the brain", together with pianist and neuroscientist (and fiancée) Håvard Ringsevjen. He combines both of his fields, presenting fascinating connections between the brain and music, and I join him for solo and duo piano pieces that underline and comment on his lecture.
Since 2018 I have been playing with the pianist and longtime friend Olga Jørgensen. Together as Duo Futt we are exploring four hand and two piano repertoire, performing both familiar favourites like Stravinsky's Petroushka and Schubert's Fantasie, as well as hardly known works by female composers like Cecile Chaminade, Agathe Backer Grøndahl and Marie Jaëll. We have an ongoing project finding more of the latter and giving it the exposure it truly deserves.
In 2020 I did a collaboration with the actress, dramatic writer and singer Maren Sennels. It resulted in a concert/drama combining music and songs with poetry and monologues. They all had in common that they were about loneliness. The show, "En som - en hyllest til ensomheten", was due to be premiered in March that year but had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. The following months of social distancing and quarantines made loneliness a much featured topic. We have since performed the show in Oslo, Grimstad and Flekkefjord, at Det Norske Teateret, Off-Hedda festivalen, Frogner church and Teater Bislett.
In 2023 I did more children shows than ever, mostly with the group På spissen, together with pianist Siril A. Valberg and dancer Julie S. Dokken. The first show we made was The Mini Nutcracker, a mini version (for mini people) of the ballet for four hands piano, dance, storytelling and parts where the children get to participate in the story and movements. We have performed it in severeal cities, and did ten shows at children hospitals in the Oslo area January-March 2024. This year we're touring with another children's show, a four-hand version of Peter and the Wolf, where the audience gets to move and create the story with us. I hope the kids enjoy it as much as we do making it :)
In October 2023 we did another show based on Ibsen's Peer Gynt and Grieg's music, adapted for retirement homes, and did a tour at 15 homes in Bærum.
You can read more about our projects here.
If I were not doing music I would probably be working somewhere with animals.
