Violinist Stephanie Yu is a performer, collaborator, and composer based in Los Angeles. She holds a Bachelor and Master of Music from the Juilliard School in New York City, as a recipient of C.V. Starr & Teplitsky Memorial scholarships. An avid orchestral and chamber musician, she has performed in venues across the United States and the world, including the Royal Albert Hall, Berghain, Kennedy Center, Metropolitan Opera House, Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. Awarded the Merv Griffin Memorial Scholarship, Stephanie was a guest soloist with the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra at their annual Gala in the historic Beverly Hills Hilton; she was delighted and surprised to find herself on a program with actor and director Clint Eastwood.
A versatile collaborator and voting member of the Recording Academy, Stephanie enjoys doing projects with unique artists. As a studio musician, she continues to record for film, tv, and video game soundtracks, and has performed in live bands & sessions for iconic artists including Beyoncé, Chloe x Halle, Cypress Hill, Danny Elfman, Justin Timberlake, Jónsi, Mariah Carey, Rihanna, The Who, The Midnight Hour, and more. A fun fact: her first paid gig was at age eight, playing on the score for Music of the Heart. As a DJ under the moniker “Hustlekat,” Stephanie was a monthly resident for NTS Radio, a global radio platform with studios in London, Los Angeles and Shanghai. In 2025, marking her debut with the record label Curious Music, she is releasing a full length LP with her collaborator Collin Davis entitled “Altar of Tomorrow.”
In addition to her own projects, Stephanie is committed to a pursuit of the arts through teaching and community involvement. Through spoken word and music, she was a volunteer with Shining Light Academy, a Performing Arts initiative that shares hope with the incarcerated. In 2012 and 2013, she and a team of Juilliard students gave concerts in temporary housing complexes in Japan’s Tohoku region, the community most affected by the tsunami. Stephanie has also travelled to Salvador de Bahia, Brazil to mentor students of Neojiba, a program based on the highly successful Venezuelan music program ‘El Sistema.’ At Juilliard, she was an Instrumental Music Program Fellow at P.S. 11 and P.S. 84 schools, English Teaching Fellow, Colloquium Peer Mentor, and Gluck Community Service Fellow.
Stephanie has been a fellow of the Perlman Music Program, London Masterclasses, Castleton Festival founded by Lorin Maazel, National Symphony Orchestra Music Institute, ENCORE School for Strings, and Aspen Music Festival. Originally from Los Angeles, she was a scholarship student at the Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences and has received support from a myriad of institutions, including The Colburn Foundation, Leni Fe Bland Foundation, Young Musician’s Debut Foundation, Howard P. Allen (Edison International) Scholarship Committee, and the Cerritos Performing Arts Center. She has been under the tutelage of Masao Kawasaki, Joseph Lin, Catherine Cho, Bing Wang, and Alexander Treger.
Stephanie also enjoys staying active in her community. She ran the New York City (2015) and Los Angeles Marathons (2018), and is a regular outreach worker for the unhoused.