Concertmaster Yi-Li Chang, who carried it off with confident virtuosity....

                                                              - The Boston Musical Intelligencer -

A native of Taiwan, Dr Yi-Li Chang has been recognized by Boston Musical Intelligencer as a baroque violinist with “confident virtuosity, and blend as necessary, adding a rich warmth to the group’s sound.”. As a founding member of the early music chamber ensemble Incendium Novum, Dr Chang performs regularly in Asia and U.S. Dr Chang has also invited and participated in music festivals and concert series, most recently at Macau International Music Festival, Georgetown Festival in Malaysia, Macau Vocal Festival and Boston Early Music Festival, among others. She also invited to give lectures at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysian Institute of Art, Boston Public Library and National Taiwan Normal University.

Dr Chang has performed solo and chamber baroque violin and modern violin recitals in many well-known concert halls such as Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS, Experimental Theatre of UM in Malaysia, Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Boston University, Cary Hall in U. S., National Concert Hall of Taiwan, National Recital Hall of Taiwan, among others. She has also toured with various groups, such as Incendium Novum, La Donna Musicale, Rumbarocco, VerSeS and Formosa Baroque in U.S., Malaysia, Taiwan, and Europe. She has also studied piano performance and composition; some of her compositions have been recognized and performed in U.S. and Taiwan.

As an orchestral musician, Dr Chang has performed with Boston-based groups such as Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra and Lexington Symphony Orchestra. While in Taiwan, she has been a member of the Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra and Taipei Century Orchestra. She has performed as concertmaster with the Longy Early Opera Project; as string section coach and concertmaster, for Philharmonia Moments Musicaux Baroque orchestra in Taiwan, and as guest artist and coach at Tufts University and Montserrat College of Art in U.S.

A well-rounded musician, Dr Chang’s knowledge of music goes beyond the modern and baroque violin. In addition to baroque performance and composition, her interests extend to harpsichord, which most recently she performed the harpsichord concerto of J.S.Bach with KLPAC orchestra in Malaysia in 2022. When Dr Chang studied in U.S., she has studied the harpsichord with Avi Stein and Vivian Montgomery, continuo accompaniment, which she has studied with Vivian Montgomery, Avi Stein, Dana Maiben, and Douglas Freundlich, and viola da gamba, which she has studied with Jane Hershey and Sarah Cunningham.

Dr Chang received her first master degree (2007) and Ph. D. (2014) in violin performance from National Taiwan Normal University under Professor Nanette Chen. After receiving her PhD, she went aboard to study historical performance and graduated in 2016 with a Graduate Performance Diploma in baroque violin, and in 2015 with a Master of Music degree in Early Music from the Longy School of Music of Bard College, under baroque violinist Dana Maiben. During her studies at Longy, she was the winner of the Honors Competition and granted the prestigious Roman Totenberg Award.

Besides being soloist and being with these groups, Dr Chang is also a dedicated educator, which she has been the faculty of Arlington Public School, New School of Music, and staff accompanist at Longy School of Music of Bard College in USA. Dr Chang is the member of The Viola da Gamba Society of America and College Music Society of U.S.

She is now Senior Lecturer at University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.