Praised for her creativity, grant winning violist Rayna Yun Chou has performed and presented projects internationally. Her most recent project, Concert For One, is a social experimental exhibition that has been featured on the Boston Globe, National Public Radio and others. A graduate of Yale School of Music, Rayna is a current doctoral student at Boston University School of Music, and a contributing writer for the Huffington Post, Crossing, and MUZIK Air Taiwan.
Born in the summer of 1993, Rayna had won several competitions in her home country Taiwan, including Taiwan National Chamber Competition (2004), Taiwan Viola Competition (2005), and National Viola Competitions (2008). She continued her studies in the United States with Donald McInnes in 2008.
In 2011, Rayna moved to Boston and began her Bachelor and Master studies at the New England Conservatory in the studios of Martha Strongin Katz and Dimitri Murrath.
As a student at the conservatory, she participated in masterclasses, worked with members of the Borromeo Quartet, and attended international music festivals in the summers. In 2017, Rayna began her full scholarship fellowship of Master of Musical Arts at Yale School of Music, studying with Steven Tenenbom and Ettore Causa.
As an artist, her project One Minute of Just Us was awarded New England Conservatory’s Entrepreneurial Musicianship Award in 2016 before its successful debut in Taichung city. In 2018, Concert for One was selected through a global search for Public Art Project by the Celebrity Series of Boston. The public exhibition premiered in Boston and Cambridge in 2019 with the support from the City of Boston, Harvard University, and others.
Rayna is also the co-founder of Music Traveler and Accel. In September 2018, she was awarded the GYA Grant from the New England Conservatory for her non-profit educational work. Rayna also holds a Graduate Certificate in Marketing Management from Harvard University Extension School, her other experiences outside the field of music include an internship at the Yale University Press.