Yi-Mei Templeman is a classical cellist, singer-songwriter, and composer from Santa Monica, California. She creatively fuses genres, and rethinks typical presentation of classical music in order to welcome people of all backgrounds into her distinctly intimate storytelling. Yi-Mei has brought her music to venues across Asia, Europe, South America, Canada, and the United States. She has spent past summers at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Perlman Music Program, Yale University's Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Avaloch Farm, Yellow Barn’s Young Artists Program, Carnegie Hall’s Audience Engagement Institute, and the Tanglewood Institute, where she was principal cellist of the Young Artists Orchestra. She also toured Taiwan with the National Taiwan Youth Symphony and performed in the International Piatigorsky Festival.
Outside of her work with Trio Gaia, Yi-Mei is an avid recording musician and moonlights as a singer-songwriter, strumming her cello sideways like a guitar. Recently, she performed original songs and classical music alike at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater in NYC, opening for Ben Abraham. She was also selected to perform in an event at Little Island NYC curated by Sara Bareilles, Michelle Ndegeocello, and Broadway producer Tina Landau, which celebrated six up-and-coming female songwriters. As a recording musician, Yi-Mei's cello-playing has been featured on Sabrina Carpenter’s music, in collaborations with Adam Melchor, and on "Late Night with Seth Meyers". Lately, Yi-Mei has been voraciously working on songwriting, string arranging, and music production. You can find her growing collection of self-produced original music on streaming services under the pseudonym "yeemz", or on her Instagram, @yeemz.cello. She has garnered over a hundred thousand followers for her original music and unique style of cello playing. She just released her first self-produced EP on all streaming services, and her original songs have been featured on multiple Spotify and Apple Music editorial playlists. Her single, "Hey, You" was recently played on BBC 1 radio. Yi-Mei scored her first short film, “The Unreachable Star”, which premiered at the Hawaiian International Film Festival in 2023, and is currently working on her second short film score.
An eager collaborator and contemporary music advocate, Yi-Mei has premiered solo cello works written for her by composers Emmett Mathison and Kyrie Mcintosh. In 2022, she performed a piece that she is particularly passionate about, “SEVEN” by Andrea Casarrubios, at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, as the single soloist for her class graduation ceremony. During the pandemic, Yi-Mei worked with composer and friend Nico Daglio Fine to record a solo cello piece for a virtual reality installation. She also started a series of co-writing adventures – “The Moonsong Project'' – on social media with dear friend and frequent composing collaborator, Noga Cabo. Yi-Mei teaches cello privately and as a teaching fellow of Boston Hope Music's partnership with Massachusetts General hospital. She earned a B.M. from the New England Conservatory in 2022 with a minor in Cultural Studies. She then became the youngest ever musician to be a part of NEC’s Professional Piano Trio Residency Program, through which she earned a G.D. and an M.M. in Chamber Music with her best friends (Trio Gaia). When not playing cello (sideways or vertically), you can find Yi-Mei baking cookies for friends, reading surrealist fiction, scouring Depop for colorful vintage clothes, solving Rubik’s Cubes, or practicing yoga.
