Conductor, composer, pianist, and soprano YIRAN ZHAO holds a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from Yale School of Music and a Bachelor of Music in Piano and Theory & Composition from Westminster Choir College (“WCC”). She is the assistant conductor of Civic Orchestra of New Haven, and Greater New Haven Community Chorus. Yiran was the recipient of the “Robert Shaw Prize” (for distinguished achievement), “Margot Fassler Prize in the Performance of Sacred Music”, and the “The Hugh Porter Scholarship” at Yale. She attended the University of Oregon Orchestral Conducting workshop with Neil Varon in 2023, the Norfolk Summer Choral Conducting Workshop with Simon Carrington in 2022, and Illinois Bach Academy (conducting track) with Andrew Megill in 2021. She has performed as a conductor, pianist, and singer in the New Music New Haven series, and she worked in conducting masterclass with Masaaki Suzuki. She worked as a conducting teacher at Yale and gave lessons to Yale School of Music students. She was a conducting apprentice at Berkshire Choral International in 2022, and she attended Brevard Music Festival in 2018 as a pianist. An active composer, Yiran’s works have been frequently performed at Yale, USC, WCC, and in Europe and Asia.
Her “Symphony No. 1” was performed by Westminster Community Orchestra, which received first place in the WCC Composition Competition. She is the organist at First Baptist Church in New Haven, and she sings professionally with Apollo’s Fire, VOCES8 Scholars, VAE Cincinnati, and Yale Choral Artists.