Yee Ling Elaine Ng, viola

Born in Hong Kong, Elaine Ng established herself as a well-rounded musician. With full scholarships and academic fellowships awards, she earned her Bachelor Degree of Music (Honors) at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and her Master Degree of Music at Mannes College – The New School for Music in New York City, where her major mentors were Hong-Ying Ho, Hiroko Yajima, and Chu-Tung Lo. She has received major festival-invitations including New York String Orchestra Seminar at Carnegie Hall, Kent/Blossom Music Festival with Cleveland Orchestra, St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar at Stanford University, Chiara String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar at University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Young Professional Artist Program at Newport Music Festival, School for Music and Arts at Fontainebleau Chamber Music Festival in Paris, France.

As a passionate chamber musician, Elaine’s ensembles received intensive chamber music training, collaborations with members from the Miami, Guarneri, Orion, Juilliard, Fine Arts, Szymanowski, Endellion, Ébène, Ysaye and Berlin Philharmonic String Quartets etc. During her education, Elaine also served as the first violinist and violist of the UMKC Conservatory’s Graduate Fellowship String Quartet for years while being the longest recipient of the fellowship award in the program. As the award winner of Sigma Alpha Iota Scholarship competition and the support of university fellowship grants, Elaine is now at the stage of defending her doctoral degree in Violin Performance, where her major mentors are Benny Kim, Scott Lee, and Michael Mermagen.

Being very experienced in performing contemporary music, Elaine also works with leading living composers including Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Kaija Saariaho, Yotam Haber, Aaron Kernis, Donald Crockett, Morton Subotnick, and John Corigliano. Corigliano himself has described her performance as “One of the finest playings of my own compositions that I have ever heard…terrific musical experience!” During her time in France, her quartet has won the First Prize for Ravel Prix Chamber Music Competition at Fontainebleau. As an international artist, Elaine was invited as a soloist, collaborating with cellist José Herrera on seasonal concert series along with the Orchestra Camerata de Coahuila on Brahms’s Double Concerto in Mexico.

After serving as the associate concertmaster of Wichita Symphony Orchestra and Topeka Symphony Orchestra, Elaine currently serves as the Principal Viola at the Des Moines Symphony and plays with the Kansas City Symphony. Outside of her orchestral career, she is also one of the Artist-Residents at the professional chamber music group newEar Contemporary Ensemble and a guest artist at the Bach Aria Soloist Ensemble.

In 2020 she entered the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel as Artist in Residence in the class of Miguel da Silva.

Elaine benefits from a scholarship “in memoriam” – M. Charles Octave Caillebaut & Mrs. Juliette Clémentine Wiertz