Executive & Artistic Director

Richard Tang Yuk, Executive and Artistic Director of The Princeton Festival, is a Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music (UK) and holds advanced degrees in conducting from the Mannes College of Music, New York, and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

With over 35 years of experience in opera and choral music, Dr. Tang Yuk has overseen expansion of artistic programming at The Princeton Festival since its inception and is at the core of its creative planning and vision. Each June, the Princeton Festival offers a varying array of professional performances in opera, musical theater, dance, chamber music, orchestral and choral music, vocal and instrumental jazz, world music, recitals, an annual piano competition and a lecture series at various venues in and around Princeton, New Jersey.

For The Princeton Festival he has conducted Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Handel’s Ariodante, and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Peter Grimes, among several others. He also conducted Bizet’s Carmen and Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for the Opera Festival of New Jersey; Handel’s Hercules for the American Handel Society; Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience, Die Zauberflöte, and Beethoven’s Fidelio for the Princeton University Opera Theatre; and Handel’s Messiah for the National Choral Council at Lincoln Center, New York. He will conduct John Adams’ Nixon in China this season.

Oratorio credits include J.S. Bach’s Matthäus Passion, Johannes Passion, and B minor Mass; Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten and The Creation; Honegger’s Le Roi David; Mendelssohn’s Elijah; Orff’s Carmina Burana; and the requiems of Duruflé, Brahms, Mozart, and Schütz.

In the realm of academia, Dr. Tang Yuk has served on the music faculties of Princeton University, the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and the Westminster Choir College Conservatory.

He has appeared as conductor with several orchestras including The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, The Richardson Chamber Players, the Brno Philharmonic in the Czech Republic, The Princeton Festival Orchestra, and the Princeton University Orchestra.

He was Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Trinidad and resident Conductor for Trinidad Opera Company before coming to the United States. He is of Chinese descent and from the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, returning often to adjudicate their national music festival.

Board of Trustees

The Princeton Festival is fortunate to have a distinguished panel of trustees who donate their time to ensure that the Festival remains a healthy, growing, vital organization. We are also proud of the outstanding group of artists who serve as advisors on our programs.

Costa Papastephanou, Chair
Debbie Herman, Vice Chair
Thomas V.Lento, Vice Chair
Jane DeLung, Treasurer
Marcia Atcheson, Secretary

Marcia Bossart
Pamela Bristol
David H. Brown
Helene Kulsrud
Anastasia Marty
E. Elizabeth Sweetser
Richard Tang Yuk
Diane Uniman
Benedikt von Schroder

Emeriti

Markell Shriver
Gabriel Stelian

Advisory Council

Sylvia McNair
Grammy®-winning vocal artist

Nigel Redden
General Director, Spoleto Festival USA
Director, The Lincoln Center Festival

Mark Steinberg
Violinist, Brentano String Quartet

Carol Vaness
Internationally renowned soprano
Voice faculty, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University