Meidad Yehudayan
MEIDAD YEHUDAYAN Award-winning violist, violinist, and conductor Meidad Yehudayan has received international recognition for his performances, recordings, educational work and teaching. From the White House in Washington DC, to the World Peace Festival in Korea, his projects have included solo and chamber performances with members of the Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic and Hong Kong Philharmonic orchestra. Further afield in Europe, he has taken part in international festivals such as Rolandseck in Germany and AMEROPA in the Czech Republic. He has collaborated with renowned musicians including Vadim Gluzman, Itamar Golan, Myung-wha Chung, Guy Braunstein, and Michael Kugel. As a solo recitalist, he has played extensively in the USA, Europe and Israel. In addition to recordings for Radio Hong Kong and Israel National Radio, he has made six albums with his Hong Kong Pure Strings ensemble. The first CD, Popsinera, won The Best Light Music Album of the year from Radio Guangdong and was chosen one of The Ten Hottest CDs of 2008. His follow-up album Surprise – Happy Birthday was even more successful. This took the Best CD of 2009 from Canton Radio, one of the largest and most prestigious music awards in China. A participant and prizewinner in several international competitions himself, Yehudayan has been invited onto the jury panel of several competitions including International Vienna Music Competition, Vanke Meisha chamber music competition in China, and Hong Kong International Strings Competition. He has conducted masterclasses in California and Indiana University. Meidad Yehudayan was the Orchestra and Strings Director at Hong Kong International School from 1999-2023. Under his guidance and as the program originator, he had the privilege of educating thousands of students of all ages, creating and developing a world-class strings and orchestra program, and raising millions of dollars for the school as a result of its tremendous success. In addition to the annual school concerts, he was involved in planning special projects, festivals, and concerts in Hong Kong and abroad. Some of these events included joint concerts with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and taking students to many APAC (Asia Pacific Activities Conferences) festivals across Asia and in the USA. Many of Yehudayan’s students won awards and competitions over the past 23 years. Most recent awards are from the Carnegie Hall American Protégé International Competition in New York, The Association for Music in International school (AMIS) Solo and Ensemble competition, and the Hong Kong Music Festival. Meidad Yehudayan received his Bachelor of Music Degree and Artist Diploma in the Faculty of Performing Arts from the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance. There he studied violin and viola with Samuel Bernstein. He then became the first Israeli student to be sent to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Russia from which he received a diploma under the guidance of Yuri Bashmet and Fiodor Druzhinin. Subsequently, he acquired his Master of Music Degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Pinchas Zukerman and Michael Tree. You can watch many of Yehudayan’s solo, chamber music and conducting performances on Youtube.