Terence Yung

Terence Yung (born Hong Kong, China) is a classical pianist, international arbitrator, and author of the legal blog The Yung Conspiracy.

Education
At the age of five, Yung was found playing melodies by ear. Yung, who grew up in the United States, studied privately with Eleanor Sokoloff of the Curtis Institute of Music. He later trained at the Juilliard School pre-college program in New York City, where he was a scholarship student of Frank Lévy and Martin Canin (the teaching assistant of the eminent pedagogue Rosina Lhévinne who taught Van Cliburn and John Williams). He continued his studies with Abbey Simon (who himself was a pupil of Josef Hofmann) at the University of Houston in Texas on a music scholarship and Pell grant. While at the university, he taught students from families of extreme poverty at the Yellowstone Academy in the Third Ward part of Houston as part of its urban outreach initiatives. Yung excelled academically, winning prizes for English essays on the subjects of H. Rider Haggard and Bram Stoker. He graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts from the Department of English and a Bachelor of Music from the Moores School of Music, obtaining summa cum laude honors in both degrees. Upon graduation, he was inducted into the Sigma Tau Delta and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies. He also holds the prestigious Diplôme from the Académie internationale d'été de Nice in France, where he studied with Michel Béroff and Philippe Entremont. Additionally, he took lessons (informally) with Lang Lang, Susan Starr, Garrick Ohlsson, and Horacio Gutierrez.

Yung qualified to study at Cornell Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, but matriculated at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas on a full scholarship, where his teachers included John A. Robertson, Sanford Levinson and Alan S. Rau. While at Texas, he edited for the Texas Review of Law and Politics and the Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal. He later enrolled at the University of London, where he earned a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours, a rare distinction typically conferred on less than 1% of the graduating class. His dissertation advanced a liberal morality analysis of the law of gross negligence manslaughter under the moral foundations theory of Jonathan Haidt. He was called to the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London, England as an Associate Member (ACIArb) in 2022. He also holds course certificates from the SDA Bocconi School of Management, the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Yale University, where his teachers included Akhil Reed Amar, Ian Shapiro, Ian Ayres,   Barry Nalebuff, Robert Shiller, Paul Bloom,  Andrew Metrick, and former United States Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner.

Music career
Yung has appeared as a recitalist, chamber-musician, and soloist with orchestras throughout the United States including performances in Philadelphia, New York City, Seattle, and Houston, as well as abroad in Spain and France. He made his first public appearance at the age of 6. At age 11, he was asked to perform Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts' Master Class Series. At age 13, he made his professional début with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Opera House Youth Concert Series.

Notable venues include the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Teatro de Puigcerdá, the Grand Opera House in Delaware, Benaroya Hall, Yamaha Salon, Steinway Hall in New York City, the Kosciuszko Foundation, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. He has also appeared at a number of international music festivals including the Puigcerdá International Music Festival, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College, the Seattle International Piano Festival, and the International Piano Festival in Houston. His recordings and interviews have been broadcast by radio and television throughout the United States and abroad.

Yung has been the subject of a number of interviews by Ming Pao Daily News and Global Chinese Times as well as French Public News as an outstanding young talent from Hong Kong. Mr. Yung has been an advocate for the education and outreach of classical music. He is affiliated with Sing For Hope, volunteering with its Healing Arts initiative to bring the gift of music to doctors and patients at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

In 2010, Yung was selected as a Young Steinway Artist.

Personal life
Yung is the grandson of Yung Yi-Yin, a prominent educationalist who was headmaster of several Government primary schools in Hong Kong. In 1980, the elder Yung was awarded a Medal of Honour (Hong Kong) for valuable services rendered by him to Hong Kong by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which was presented to him before an audience by the 25th Governor of Hong Kong Murray MacLehose, Baron MacLehose of Beoch.

Yung has made some donations to Republicans, most notably Governor of Texas Greg Abbott. He was a member of the Federalist Society from 2015 to 2016 and from 2020 to 2021.

He made headlines when he pled guilty to cyberstalking an admissions interviewer during a personal and artistic crisis after being rejected from Georgetown University Law Center, despite having good grades and strong test scores. His antics included publishing online ads directing people interested in alternative sexual practices to the interviewer's house. He was sentenced to 46 months in jail for the incident. In the aftermath, Yung became involved in various philanthropic works, most notably as a member and donor of Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization founded in 2014 by conservative activist Edward Blum for the purpose of challenging affirmative action admissions policies at schools. Most recently, the charity successfully sued Harvard University to end its discriminatory admissions policy.