The music of multi-award-winning composer Vincent Ho has been described by The New York Times as ‘brilliant and compelling’, not least for his music’s beauty and expressive breadth. Ho wrote The Twelve Chinese Zodiac Animals as a gift for his eight-year-old daughter, to enrich her musical education as she learned the piano and to introduce her to Chinese cultural themes and performance practices in pianistic form. The cycle presents the musical spirits of the animals with captivating musical caricatures in two books, the second of which is a selection of preludes and fugues for more advanced players. They are performed by Tony Yike Yang, one of Canada’s finest young pianists and the youngest laureate in the history of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.

Hailed by CBC Music as one of Canada’s finest young musicians, pianist Tony Yike Yang first rose to international acclaim in 2015 after becoming the youngest-ever laureate in the history of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, winning Fifth Prize at the age of 16. He has also won prizes at the Van Cliburn, Gina Bachauer, Hilton Head, Cooper and Bösendorfer, and Yamaha USASU International Piano Competitions. As a soloist, Yang has performed in nearly 40 countries in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Seoul Arts Center, Esplanade Singapore and Theatro Municipal in São Paulo. Yang has also performed for dozens of royalty and dignitaries such as Her Majesty Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty Queen Mathilde of Belgium, former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, former Kuwaiti prime minister Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah and Polish president Andrzej Duda, to name a few. Born in Chongqing and raised in Toronto, Yang is a recent graduate of Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. He is artist-in-residence at the Ingesund Piano Center in Sweden and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and was previously a fellow at the International Piano Academy Lake Como. Currently pursuing his Master of Music at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover under Professor Arie Vardi, Yang is named One to Watch by Scala Radio UK.