Professional Summary
Avan Yu is Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He joined CCM in 2025, having previously taught piano at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2020 to 2025.
Yu has performed throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia — at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, Salle Cortot in Paris, and the Sydney Opera House. As a concerto soloist he has appeared with the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, Vancouver Symphony, Victoria Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia, Sydney Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Dresden Philharmonic, under conductors including Jaap van Zweden, Pinchas Zukerman, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Bramwell Tovey, Christian Arming, and Juanjo Mena. He made his Hong Kong Philharmonic debut under van Zweden in 2021 and returned as soloist for the orchestra's 2022 season-opening concerts, again with van Zweden conducting. His festival appearances include the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Heidelberger Frühling, Young Euro Classic, the Bodenseefestival, and the Festival de Lanaudière, and his collaborators have included the cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Johannes Moser. Critics have described his playing as marked by "glittering virtuosity" (The West Australian) and "astonishing sensitivity" (La Presse).
His competition awards include First Prize and nine special awards at the Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia; the Silver Medal and Audience Prize at the Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition in Spain; and the Grand Prize at the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition, where he is the only pianist to have won both the junior and senior divisions. At seventeen he became the youngest winner of the Canadian Chopin Piano Competition.
Yu has played Ravel's complete solo piano works in full in South Korea and Canada, and is recording them for commercial release. His doctoral dissertation examined Hans Abrahamsen's Left, alone, a concerto for piano left hand and orchestra, and he gave the work its Canadian premiere with the Esprit Orchestra under Alex Pauk.
Yu holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music and a Konzertexamen and Diplom from the Berlin University of the Arts. His principal teachers were Horacio Gutiérrez, Klaus Hellwig, Kenneth Broadway, Ralph Markham, and Kut Kau Sum. His recording of Liszt's transcriptions of Schubert's Winterreise and Schwanengesang, issued by Naxos, was praised in Gramophone, American Record Guide, and Fono Forum.
He has served on the juries of the Canadian Chopin Piano Competition and the WPTA Young Concert Artists International Piano Competition, and adjudicates regularly abroad. He is Artistic and Executive Director of Muzewest Concerts Society, a non-profit concert series in Vancouver, Canada.