Julie Yuqing Ye
ABOUT
Julie Yuqing Ye is a classical pianist based in Oslo.
As an active soloist and chamber musician she has given concerts throughout Europe. Venues include the Norwegian Opera and Ballet and Oslo Concert Hall as well as Wigmore Hall and Milton Court Concert Hall in London.
After entering Unge Talenter, a program for young and talented musicians at Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo, she 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.
During these years she studied with Marianna Shirinyan, Håvard Gimse, Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva, as well as Alessandra Georgia Brustia during an exchange term to the Claudio Monteverdi Conservatorio in Bolzano.
Some of the festivals Julie has participated in are Oslo Chamber Music Festival, Oxford Philomusica Piano Festival, Beijing International Music Festival and Academy, International Summer Academy Mozarteum, Hardanger Musikkfest, Trondheim Kammermusikkfestival.
Julie's most recent television appearance was at the Norwegian Broadcasting Company's Grieg Anniversary Concert (NRK's Grieg: Minutt for minutt) in 2018. She was also in the NRK show Meisterklasse in 2012 together with Leif Ove Andsnes.
Photo: Håvard Ringsevjen
More about me
julieyuye
duofutt
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
In May 2022 I played Pauline Hall's Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor (1916) at the Harald Sæverud Museum, Siljustøl. That was probably the first time in hundred years that the piece was performed publicly. Hall was a prominent figure in Norwegian musical life at the beginning of the 20th century. This forgotten gem of a piece was written at a time where female composers still were disproportionately overshadowed by their male contemporaries, and I am so happy KODE gave me the opportunity to perform it, and hope it will start to receive the recognition it deserves. Also very glad that I got to play the sonata at the FRAM concert series in Oslo and INN:PUST 2023 in Gjøvik.
Here is an interview I did about the sonata for the Steinway Piano Gallery Oslo.
Click here and scroll down to listen to the full sonata.
I am still very passionate about chamber music, as well as cross art collaborations. 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 Lunsj&Lyrikk på Det Norske Teateret, Off-Hedda festivalen, Frogner church and Scene 3 at Det Norske Teateret.
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, and is like a mini version (for mini people) of the ballet for four hands piano, dance, storytelling and parts were the children get to participate in the story and the dancing. We have performed it in Oslo, Bærum and Larvik, and are doing ten shows at children hospitals in the Oslo area January-March 2024. 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.
