Julia Yang joins the Ohio State School of Music faculty in autumn 2024. Praised for “her sense of joyful virtuosity” as concerto soloist (South Florida Classical Review), Julia Yang is a courageous and soulful cellist, multi-faceted performer, and founding member of the “riveting” (Reading Eagle) and “impeccably elegant” Merz Trio (All About the Arts).

Yang’s Merz Trio are first prize winners of the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Prize as well as the Concert Artists Guild, Fischoff and Chesapeake International Chamber Music competitions. Alongside frequent concert tours managed by Epstein Fox Performances, the Trio presents innovative multidisciplinary concert experiences that interweave repertoire of the traditional piano trio genre with diverse art forms ranging from the visual arts, literature and dance to theatre and the culinary arts. With the Trio, Yang released a debut album INK (August 2021) described as “entrancing” (BBC), which brings together the words and music of Parisian composers and writers around 1914. 

On stage as soloist and chamber musician, Yang has been described as the “stunning find of the evening” (New York Classical Review) and has been noted for her “deep tone” and “precision” (South Florida Classical Review). Yang maintains a very active concertizing solo and chamber performance schedule with recent and forthcoming recitals in Carnegie Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Chamber Music Houston, and Amsterdam’s Het Concertgebouw. She has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Europe, Australia, Canada and Mexico, and has been featured as a Young Artist in Residence on Performance Today with Fred Child. 

Yang holds extensive orchestral experience having recently served as principal cellist of the Colorado Music Festival under Peter Oundjian, as well as having performed and toured as principal of the New World Symphony as a fellow for two seasons. As principal cellist, Julia has performed in halls ranging from Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Miami’s Arsht Center and New World Symphony Center to Washington DC’s Kennedy Center under numerous esteemed conductors including Susanna Mälkki, Michael Tilson Thomas, John Adams and Leonard Slatkin. 

A dedicated educator and pedagogue, Yang has served as a cello instructor and chamber music coach at the University of Pennsylvania and at the College of the Holy Cross. She holds degrees from Northwestern University and the New England Conservatory, studying with Hans Jørgen Jensen, Laurence Lesser and Yeesun Kim.