Jin-Xiang Yu

Raised in Japan, 郁金香 (Jin-Xiang Yu) is a soprano with roots from China, Japan, Korea, and Russia. She grew up in a family of musicians and painters, speaking Japanese and Mandarin Chinese and learning English and Spanish at international schools. In her early years, she was an avid athlete, dancer, trumpet player, and pianist before moving to New York City, where she discovered her love for the voice through her studies in linguistics and communication. After over a decade of studying, performing, and teaching languages and musical arts in New York City, she has recently decided to call Salt Lake City, Utah, her new home. She and her partner Bill founded the Music Under The Willow summer concert series at The Creative Little Garden New York City in 2016, and they are excited to be more involved in bringing music, arts, and experience to the local communities new to them.

Since moving to Utah, Jin-Xiang has been involved with local organizations, some of which include singing in the NOVA Chamber Music Series and with the Utah Valley University Symphony Orchestra, choreographing the local musical with the Cottonwood Heights Arts Council, and singing the role of Nedda in Pagliacci with Lyrical Opera Theatre. This coming season, she feels honored to sing in concerts featuring Westminster College and Caroline Shaw, perform as the mezzo-soprano soloist for Les Noces with Ballet West, and return for a second time with NOVA Chamber Music to perform Libby Larsen’s Songs From Letters. When not on stage, she dabbles in film and commercial work and takes pride in her private studio of piano and voice students.

Following her appearance as Elle in Poulenc’s La voix humaine, she was praised by the New York Classical Review as a “robust soprano with secure amber tone…[with a] beautiful sense of phrasing and formidable French diction” and by Parterre as “a startling departure as Elle...remarkable for its conviction, guts, and endurance,” and The New York Times hailed her “compelling performance that traced the shifting moods vividly.” In Jack Perla’s An American Dream at Opera Maine, the Portland Press Herald praised “her bright, clear timbre and admirable vocal flexibility to create a moving portrayal of Setsuko.”

She has been a guest soloist with the Yonkers Philharmonic under Maestra Tong Chen and has performed with Yale Philharmonia in Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi under Maestro Peter Oundjian. Recently, she sang O Holy Night at St. Patrick's Cathedral's A City Singing at Christmas and was a part of NAXOS's Songs of Peace and Praise. She sang the role of Papagena (Der Zauberflöte) with Yale Opera, was the soprano soloist with the Yale Concert Band in the performance of 岁月甘泉 / Ask the Sky and the Earth, and took part in the Mile-Long Opera by David Lang produced on the High Line in New York City and in Mother of Us All with the Juilliard School and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most recently, she sang the opera mono-drama Chhlong Tonle (Crossing the River) by Liliya Ugay/Sokunthary Svay with the support of the Opera America IDEA Grant. As a Bonfils-Stanton Apprentice Artist at Central City Opera, she sung the role of Annina in La Traviata and la Japonaise in Boismortier’s Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse and covered Aldonza in Man of La Mancha.

She holds a degree in theatre dance from The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, a Bachelor of Arts in linguistics and a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance from CUNY Queens College, and a Master of Music in Opera from Yale School of Music. She is a recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Arts Award and the William Orr Dingwall Korean Ancestry Grant. She has been a semi-finalist of the Young Concert Artist Competition, a finalist in the Kaleidoscope Instrumental and Vocal Competition, and the first-place winner of the Lyra NY International Vocal Competition in Art Song.