Conductor, composer, pianist, and soprano Yiran Zhao is a 2025 Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, and a recipient of the Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellowship at the Curtis Institute of Music. She was the assistant conductor of Eastman Musica Nova and taught courses in Conducting and Music Theory at Eastman. Zhao holds a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from Yale School of Music (Robert Shaw Prize recipient) and a Bachelor of Music in Piano and Theory & Composition from Westminster Choir College. Published by Hinshaw Music Inc., Zhao was a national winner of the 2024 American Prize for Composition. She has held assistant conductor roles with the Civic Orchestra of New Haven and the Greater New Haven Community Chorus, in addition to serving as a church organist for the past five years. Zhao was a conducting scholar at the Eastern Music Festival, the University of Oregon Orchestral Conducting Workshop, and the Norfolk Summer Choral Conducting Workshop. She was a conducting instructor at Yale, and she has performed as a conductor, pianist, and singer in the New Music New Haven series. Zhao is a soprano in Apollo’s Fire and Yale Choral Artists, and she was a VOCES8 US Scholar in 2023–24.
“Sophisticated harmonic sense—serious, slow moving, lovely, well orchestrated for the voices. The occasional moments of tonal repose are especially surprising, lovely, … Terrific energy and good control between ‘clean’ and ‘pedaled’ events …”
— The American Prize for Composition
In the news
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The American Prize in Composition—choral music (college/university division—shorter works), 2024 National Winner
— The American Prize
Generation YSM: Meet choral conductor Yiran Zhao ’23MM
— Yale School of Music
“Meet Yiran Zhao, a Masters of Music student in Choral Conducting '23 who is pictured rehearsing for her recent conducting recital...”
— Yale Institute of Sacred Music
“Yiran Zhao’s '21 growth as a performer and conductor points to bright future”
— Westminster Choir College
