Yu, who started to learn to play violin when she was 4, enrolled to study at the affiliated middle school of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 2012. The sound of the viola is "not as high and squeaky as the violin", she says, and at middle school she decided to make the viola her specialist subject.

She is now studying at the Colburn School in Los Angeles under the renowned Scottish viola soloist Paul Coletti.

Recalling her experience of learning music, Yu says her parents let her study violin, hoping to improve her learning and cognitive development as a child. Without the pressure of becoming a soloist, she enjoyed playing her musical instrument. She opted for music as a lifelong career when she was 12.

"I never feel bored when I play my musical instrument. Music makes me happy and imaginative."

Thanks to the internet she can collect and learn music scores from composers around the world, she says, one of her favorite composers being Johannes Brahms, whose music, Yu says, "tastes like wine".

"His music may not be easy to understand when you first listen to it, but the more you listen to it the more intriguing it becomes."