Yu Yuan is currently principal flute at the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. He was previously principal flute at the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.

In 2017, at the age of fifteen, he was the winner of the 7th Krakow International Flute Competition. Later in the same year, he also won first prize at the 9th Kobe International Flute Competition, one of the world’s top flute competitions. In 2018 he received the Discovery Award of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA).

Previously he had won first prize in the children’s section of the inaugural China Flute Association Competition in 2012 and was given an honourable mention at the 67th International Prague Spring Music Competition in 2015. He returned to Prague in 2019, where he received the second prize in the 71st Prague Spring Music Competition.

In 2023, he won second prize at the 77th Geneva International Music Competition.

Yuan studied with Sophie Cherrier at the Paris Conservatory and with Andrea Lieberknecht at the Hochschule für Musik and Theater in Munich.

He has loved performing from an early age, giving his first solo recital at the age of thirteen at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He has played concerts in China, Japan, Singapore, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and Slovenia, in recitals and with such orchestras as the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Kobe City Chamber Orchestra.