Dr Sofia Yatsyuk is a Ukrainian violinist, yogi, researcher, and writer, who has enchanted audiences and critics around the world, becoming a highly sought-after performer and collaborator. A graduate of the Purcell School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, Sofia completed her masters and doctorate degrees at McGill University. As an award-winning violinist, Sofia made her orchestral debut with the Ternopil Symphony Orchestra in 2014 and has performed as a soloist and a chamber musician in Ukraine, Italy, Slovenia, Poland, China, Canada, France, United States, and the United Kingdom since, including performances at Giuseppe Tartini’s house in Slovenia, the Parliament building in London, Wigmore Hall, and Carnegie Hall in New York. In 2024, Sofia was the recipient of McGill University’s Graduate Excellence fellowship award, the Heinz Saueressig award for academic excellence, the Josephat Jean Foundation’s doctoral award and the Marusia Yaworska scholarship award.

For her debut CD  album, Silent voices, Intertwined Paths, Sofia recorded Ethel Smyth’s and Rebecca Clarke’s violin and piano sonatas. As a violinist, and a Clarke and Smyth scholar, she wanted to expose audiences to the exquisite works of these important composers, who, in their day, were influential pioneers in their field; now they are ghostly presences in our music histories, on the margins of the classical canon.  As a writer, Sofia focuses on twentieth-century cultural history and women in the arts. Her doctoral research was on Women composers and their critics in the era of first-wave feminism: gender and the classical music canon in Britain, 1850-1950. Sofia was invited to present her research at Dublin City University’s 2024 Ethel Smyth Symposium, titled Dame Ethel Smyth: Connections, Culture, And Context and has recently written an article for The Strad magazine, titled Lessons from Dame Ethel Smyth and Rebecca Clarke this International Women’s Day. 

While completing her doctorate, Sofia was a professor of violin at McGill University. She also coached chamber music and lead orchestral sectionals. As a passionate educator, her teaching philosophy is built on adapting her methods to nurture every student’s individual creativity. She focuses on the development and the continuous evolution of a strong technical base, the understanding and implementation of deliberate practice methods, and their relationship to performance practice techniques. As a yogi, Sofia incorporates the importance of physical awareness and breath work into her teaching, addressing injury prevention and warm up techniques, uniting the body, mind, breath, and music. 

Sofia joined the Royal Academy of Music under Professor Mateja Marinkovic and completed her masters and doctorate degrees with Professor Axel Strauss. Additional inspiration has come from masterclasses with Michael Frischenschlager, Tasmin Little, Zakhar Bron, James Ehnes, Leonidas Kavakos, Maxim Vengerov, Violaine Melancon, Levon Chilingirian, Victor Danchenko, Ani Kavafian, Felix Andrievsky, and Ani Schnarch.

In addition to being a passionate yogi, Sofia enjoys tennis and all things Wimbledon. She is a passionate animal rights activist, loves to bake, garden, marvelling at the stars, and disconnecting from all electronics as often as possible. Sofia volunteers in Ukraine and raises money for a variety of Ukrainian charities following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since 2021, she has been organising benefit concerts in Montreal and New York to raise funding for orphanages located in South-Western Ukraine, where she continues to regularly volunteer. As of August 2024, Sofia is based in London, England.