Dvorak in America

Susie Yang made her solo debut performing the last movement of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of 11. The performance was broadcast on PBS in Chicago and the classical radio station, 98.7 FM. She has appeared as a soloist with many other orchestras in the greater Chicago area as well, such as the Midwest Young Artists Orchestra, Highland Park Strings, Fox Valley Symphony, and the Skokie Valley Symphony. 

 

As an avid chamber musician, she won a top prize in the Senior Division of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and has participated in the Juilliard Quartet Seminar and the Beethoven Intensive Quartet Seminar at the New England Conservatory of Music. She has collaborated with many of the top chamber musicians in the world, such as Donald Weilerstein, Roger Tapping, members of the Miami String Quartet, the Borromeo Quartet, and the Peabody Trio. 

 

Susie was also a fellow of the New World Symphony and was a rotating principal cellist under music director, Michael Tilson Thomas. After winning the concerto competition, she performed the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the New World Symphony.

 

Susie has performed as a soloist, orchestral, and chamber musician at many music festivals, including Bellingham Festival of Music, Lakes Area Music Festival, Artosphere Music Festival, Crested Butte Festival, Sarasota, Schleswig-Holstein, Music Academy of the West, Spoleto Italy and USA, Taos, Yellow Barn, Britt Festival, and Festival Mozaic. 

 

Originally from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Susie holds degrees and numerous scholarship awards from The Juilliard School and New England Conservatory of Music, studying with André Emelianoff and Laurence Lesser. 

 

Susie moved to Kansas City in the Spring of 2010 to join the Kansas City Symphony as Associate Principal Cello. She has a private studio of cello students that she loves to teach and enjoys playing chamber music around the community.