Jie Yin

Born in Beijing on October 10 in 1985, I am an operatic tenor in Estonia. I have received both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater (EAMT), and through my studies and performance, I am helping to elevate Estonia's operatic status.

I started training with my first singing teacher in 2003, just one year before getting accepted by the EAMT. I had taken private lessons in Beijing and was a total musical beginner upon entering the academy. I could not even speak English.

Throughout the last ten years, in addition to formal musical training, singing, and performing, I have been enthusiastically teaching myself vocal techniques. I used to spend an entire year tuning my voice by singing only Mozart’s operatic pieces. As a result, I have now sung almost all the major arias from his Operas! I value highly this personal training for being an Opera actor, and I believe it to be a necessary supplement to any formal training to become a true master.

My masterclasses include training by greatly respected professors and department heads throughout Beijing, London, Copenhagen, Vilnius, Helsinki, Rome, and Vienna, including the iconic Estonian bass-baritone Mati Palm, legendary 20th century Verdi tenor Carlo Bergonzi, professor Rudolf Piernay whose students such as Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel and others have won highly regarded singing competitions all over the world, beloved Lithuanian tenor Virgilijus Noreika, the ex-president of the Richard Wagner Verband International Professor Eva Märtson-Wilson, and I had the honor to study under professor Matil Palm and professor V.Noreika at EAMT.

My varied musical competitions have included International Competition Cologne, as well as winning audience prize at the qualifying round of the 30th Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition. I was chosen to be one of the four singers in the competition’s anniversary documentary film. I also was one of the finalists of the 1st Vello Jürna Singing Contest in 2009. I appeared as a soloist in over a hundred concerts and recitals in Belgium, China, Estonia, Finland, and Germany. I performed as the leading tenor in Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto and G.Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore in the Estonian National Opera. I also understudied Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Belmonte and Gianni Schicchi - Rinuccio.

In 2014, I was invited by the stage director and assistant head of Royal Danish Opera Academy, Copenhagen, to be tenor solo for the performance of G.Verdi’s Requiem at Berlin Philharmonic Hall. I was also welcomed by the conductor and chief of Les Musiciens d’Europe, founder of the Opera Studio Genève, to perform at De Kleine Stooringhe in Belgium on April 26, 2014. After an audition in Vienna, I was offered a soloist position by Maestro Nayden Todorov the artistic director and principal conductor of Ruse State Opera in 2016, unfortunately, the entire recruitment was canceled due to the financial funding issue of the local government.

Opera is a very complex performing art form that is not only about singing but acting as well. Therefore, I have been participating in acting lessons at the Drama School and watching numerous related performances.

Making sure that I would be as healthy and fit as possible for the stage, I lost 30kg since May 2014, down from the heavyweight of 150kg to a now steady and comfortable 80kg. I continue fitness training and toning my body to be at its most optimal.

It is ironic that I come from a non-musical family, and yet I am the youngest doctoral student ever accepted by the EAMT, and the first Chinese doctoral student accepted right after receiving my Master’s degree study.