Jackie Kai Zhi Yong

Jackie Yong, pianist, is a native of Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia. He grew up as a choir boy, sang in children choir and church choir, and only started taking formal piano lessons when he was 16 years old. He used less than 5 years to achieved Licentiate and Associate Diploma from Trinity College of London with Distinction. Before 16, he improvises on church contemporary music and hymns mainly by self-taught. Being a versatile musician, he actively collaborates with many instrumentalists in chamber music, singers, and choirs. As a choral conductor, he teaches and conducted numerous church choirs and award-winning school choirs in Malaysia.

He achieved Gold Award and Best Performance winner in 2018 Hong Kong-Asia Open Piano Competition, the Second Prize and Audience Favorite Award in ASWARA 1st International Piano Competition and he is the recipient of 2017 Yamaha Scholarship in Malaysia. In the US, he was the finalist of University of Tennessee (UT) Concerto Competition, and alternate winner of Tennessee Music Teacher Association (TMTA) piano duo category. He was performed and presented at 2021 and 2020 College Music Society (CMS) Southern Chapter as well as 2021 Music Teacher National Association (MTNA) Collegiate Chapter Symposium. He also participated in 2020 Heartland Chamber Music Festival at Kansas and Euro Music Festival studied under Professor Bernd Goetzke at Germany. He is a proud member of award-winning Malaysia Bachfest Singers tour around West Malaysia singing Bach’s St. Matthew Passion as a bass singer. Being a piano pedagogue, he teaches class piano at university, and also enjoy teaching piano and music theory for all ages where his students have been awarded distinction in piano and theory graded exam by Associate Board of Royal School of Music and Trinity College London.

In 2019, he graduated with Bachelor of Music from the University of Malaya in Malaysia, under the tutelage of Dr. I-Ta Wang. He is currently studying Master of Music in Piano Performance, under the tutelage of Dr. Chih-Long Hu, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with Graduate Teaching Assistantship.

You can find Jackie’s performance here.