Michelle Lin - Pianist

Michelle Lin is a pianist, scholar, and educator based in Vancouver, Canada. She received her Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance at the University of Toronto, where she won the Graduating Award, and holds two master’s degrees in Piano Performance from the University of Texas at Austin in Music Theory from Harvard University. Her research explores 20th and 21st-century compositions by Chinese composers on the international stage, integrating not only musical, but also philosophical, aesthetic, and cultural perspectives. She has presented her research at regional and international conferences including the Northeast Conference of Music Theorists (NECMT), Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic (MTSMA), International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), and her work has been published in Empirical Musicological Review.

 

Michelle was awarded first prizes at the Canadian Music Competition in solo and chamber music, and was a winner of the Felix Galimiar Chamber Music Competition and the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. She has given solo recitals at the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto, German Consulate of Canada, Vancouver Playhouse, and Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City. Since her orchestral debut with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as a winner of the VSO Concerto Competition, she has performed as a soloist with the Northwest Philharmonia in Seattle, Alicante Symphony Orchestra in Italy, and University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. An avid collaborator, Michelle has performed as an orchestral pianist with the Harvard Graduate Student Orchestra, Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra, and Toronto Youth Symphony Orchestra.

 

Committed to fostering the next generation of musicians, Michelle maintains a piano studio where her students have received Gold Medals and top marks in Royal Conservatory of Music piano examinations. She has also served as the Young Artists Program Coordinator at the Vancouver Piano Sessions, where she coached piano ensembles and developed and taught a weeklong music history and theory curriculum for young pianists ages 8-12, incorporating musicianship, interactivity, and creativity.