Yeh Tsung (Conductor)

The 2007-08 season will mark Yeh Tsung’s 19th highly successful season as the Music Director and Conductor of the South Bend Symphony Orchestra.

In April 1991, Yeh Tsung was among three conductors chosen to participate in the Conductor’s Mentor Program, co-sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  He worked closely with the Chicago Symphony and their Music Director, Daniel Barenboim and the Principal Guest Conductor, Pierre Boulez.  In November 1991, Yeh Tsung successfully led the Chicago Symphony, replacing the indisposed Daniel Barenboim on short notice in a program featuring Alfred Brendal as soloist.  Yeh Tsung was the former Exxon/Arts Endowment conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Principal Conductor of the Saint Louis Youth Orchestra.  From 1987-89, he served as the Resident Conductor of the Florida Orchestra in Tampa/St. Petersburg.  He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Albany Symphony Orchestra of New York.  From 1997-2000 he was Music Director of the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra, and from 1997-2002 was Music Director of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.

Having begun piano studies at the age of five, Maestro Yeh began to study conducting in 1979 at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and won a full scholarship in the Mannes College of Music in New York in 1981.  He earned his Bachelor of Music degree under Sidney Harth, and upon graduation, received the school’s Academic Excellence Award.  In 1983, he began work toward a Master’s degree at Yale University under Otto-Werner Mueller.  He has also studied conducting with Max Rudolf, Leonard Slatkin and Murry Sidlin.

Past engagements in North America include: the Tucson, the Calgary, and the Rochester Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra.  He conducted the San Francisco Symphony to critical acclaim in June of 1989 during the American Symphony Orchestra League Conference.  In China, he is a frequent guest conductor for orchestras in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Taichung.  In Europe, he conducted orchestras in Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic and the following ensembles in France: “Ensemble 2e2m” in Paris, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Orlean during 1996; the Ensemble de Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France as part of the Festival Presences in Paris, and “Hua Xia Ensemble” in Lyon during 1997. In May 2001, he conducted the Paris-Shanghai Duplex Concert with the French National Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra, which was broadcasted through the satellite TV with millions of viewers in both Europe and Asia.

Yeh Tsung joined the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) as Music Director in January 2002. With Yeh’s vision, SCO’s repertoire has undergone rapid expansion.  Under Yeh’s baton, SCO had successfully toured Europe in March & April 2005 for concerts at Barbican Center in London, The Sage Gateshead and the Budapest Spring Festival.

With a growing reputation in the conducting teaching field, he has been one of the Artistic Directors of the Symphonic Workshop Ltd in the Czech Republic since 1992.  He has also taught the Conductors Guild Workshops in Chicago and Indianapolis.  Yeh has been teaching frequently at the Musik Hochschule in Zurich Switzerland.  Yeh Tsung has made various recordings under Hugo, Delos and SCO label.