TwoSet Violin

Brett Yang and Eddy Chen first met each other in mathematics tutoring when Yang was 14 and Chen 13.[3][4] They became acquainted as the youngest members of a youth orchestra and later as students at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.[5] In 2012, Yang debuted at Queensland Conservatorium performing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. He has worked with various other Australian orchestras, including a performance at the 2014 G20 Brisbane summit, where he met several world leaders, including United States President Barack Obama.[6][7] Chen was a finalist for the National Young Virtuoso Award in Queensland in 2014 and had played with the Queensland and Melbourne symphonies.[8]

In 2013, the duo started posting covers of pop music played on the violin on their YouTube channel.[5] In an interview with CutCommon, Yang said they saw violin virtuosos who had millions of views on YouTube playing covers and attempted to do the same to minimal reaction.[8] They then discovered violinist Ray Chen made comedic videos and shifted their content in a similar direction. They focused their videos on their lives in the conservatory culture, as classical musicians and as students, which led to a dramatic increase in viewership.[5][8][9] At the end of 2016, Yang and Chen resigned their places in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra respectively to begin performing live concerts of their own.[7]

In 2018, their YouTube channel received the Silver Play Button for surpassing 100,000 subscribers; in 2019, they received the Gold Play Button for surpassing 1 million subscribers.[10] Classic FM's Kyle Macdonald listed TwoSet Violin as one of the "10 ways the 2010s changed classical music forever".[11] On 22 January 2020, it was announced that TwoSet Violin would be attending the Menuhin Competition held at Richmond, Virginia as roving reporters.[12][13] However, it was postponed to May 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.[14] On 8 February 2020, TwoSet Violin live streamed their performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto to celebrate achieving 2 million subscribers. Yang played the solo part while Chen performed an original arrangement of the orchestral component for solo violin.[15]

On 11 December 2020, they announced a temporary hiatus from YouTube due to health reasons on Yang's side.[16][17] They announced a slow return to making videos on 14 January 2021.[18]

On 30 January 2021, TwoSet Violin live streamed their performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto to celebrate achieving 3 million subscribers. Chen played the solo while Yang performed an arrangement of the orchestral component for solo violin.[19]

TwoSet announced their first live performance Brisbane, Australia on 8 September 2016 via YouTube.[20] The act featured violin performance more in the format of a comedy act than a traditional concert.[5]

With KickStarter as their fundraising method along with street performance in Sydney, they raised enough money to go on a worldwide tour in 2017 to 11 cities in 10 countries,[5][21][22] in Asia and Europe[23] including Taipei, Helsinki, and Frankfurt.[24][25][26] In 2018, they performed in several places in the United States including New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.[27][28][23]

In October 2019, TwoSet announced another world tour where they planned to visit multiple locations in Oceania, Europe, Asia and North America.[29] However, the tour was postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and new dates have not been announced as of December 2020.[30]

In 2017, TwoSet Violin made a comedic reference to Ling Ling, a fictional violinist who "practices 40 hours a day". In an interview with Yle Uutiset, they described Ling Ling as the final boss of a video game: the Chuck Norris of violinists. Chen said they improvised the character from their comedy sketch video concerning a teenage violin student's tiger mom comparing the student to her friend's child.[31][32] In 2018, they released a series of videos called the Ling Ling Workout. In these challenges, the duo draws a classical piece (or contemporary music) and a handicap such as playing with double speed, scordatura, playing while dancing or hula hooping, with hand positions reversed, or while upside down. Prominent violinists such as Ray Chen, Ziyu He, and Hilary Hahn have also attempted the challenge on their channel.[33][32][34][35][36]

In July 2018, they released a series of videos in which they performed classical music using rubber chickens.[37][38][39] In August 2018, they released a video series called "1% Violin Skills, 99% Editing Skills" in which Yang attempts to play a difficult piece, and Chen asks him to play a chromatic scale. Chen then uses video editing to piece together the notes as originally composed.[40] Other gimmicks include violin charades,[35] playing other instruments,[41] and viola jokes.[42] Another popular video series consists of reviews of film and TV show scenes that feature violin playing, in which Yang and Chen critique egregiously fake performances.[43][44] On April Fools' Day 2019, they claimed they discovered a new Double Violin Concerto by J.S. Bach.[45]

On 14 September 2018, TwoSet Violin uploaded a reaction video to a BBC News story titled "Fastest Violinist in the World", in which they challenged violinist Ben Lee's Guinness World Record claim of playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" for what they perceived to be significant inaccuracy. They satirically timed themselves purposefully playing random fast notes before declaring they had broken the world record.[46] In April 2019, the duo similarly called out Vov Dylan, who was awarded the title of World's Fastest Violinist by the Australian Book Of Records,[47] concluding that Dylan's performance of "Bumblebee" was worse than Lee's.[48]

• Official website

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