Jialin Yao has been hailed for his “mature, sensitive, and polished playing, with a serious attitude towards music-making and a strong mindset for interpretive details” (Dmitri Alexeev), and he is increasingly recognised for his “natural musicianship as well as his very sophisticated technical skills” (Michel Béroff). His love of bringing warmth, passion, and magic to audiences has led to performances throughout North America, Asia, and Europe. Being a multi-dimensional musician, Jialin not only appears on stage as a chamber musician and collaborator but is also committed to piano teaching. Currently, he is serving as a secondary piano course teacher at the Juilliard School. He is a firm believer that the most moving music can only come from the most open-hearted and truthful human beings.

As a soloist, Jialin is an avid interpreter of a wide range of repertoire. He has performed piano concertos with the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestra Academia China, among others. In 2018, as a distinguished artist of KNS Classical, Jialin released his first album, Campanella.

Jialin has been a prize-winner in numerous competitions, such as the Friuli Venezia Giulia International Piano Competition, the Teresa Carreño Master Piano Competition, the Singapore International Piano Competition, the Steinway National Competition, the Shigeru Kawai International Piano Competition, the Santa Cecilia International Piano Competition, and many others. In 2022, he was selected for the soloist programme of the Verbier Festival Academy, as one of eight pianists.

A sensitive and keen chamber musician, Jialin has a wide chamber music repertoire and has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center's S Rose Studio, and Église de Verbier Station. His chamber music mentors include Emanuel Ax, Jerome Lowenthal, Ronald Copes, Joseph Lin, Ida Kavafian, Augustin Dumay, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Mihaela Martin, and Mathieu Herzog. In 2022, Jialin and his VIA piano trio were selected for the Juilliard Honours Chamber Music programme.

Jialin was born in China in 1999. He began playing the piano at the age of 4. In 2011, Jialin entered the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he studied with Hong Fu. Since 2020, Jialin has also received guidance from pianist Ruoyu Huang. Jialin currently studies at the Juilliard School in New York with Sergei Babayan.