Katie Yap has won the 2022 Freedman Classical Fellowship.

The Melbourne-based violist competed against harpist Emily Granger and fellow violist Henry Justo, to emerge as the winner of the Music Trust’s coveted $21,000 Fellowship. The finals took place over the weekend in front of a live audience and an esteemed panel of judges in the intimate Utzon Room of the Sydney Opera House.

Katie Yap performs in the finals of the 2022 Freedman Classical Fellowship, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House. Photo © Grant Leslie

Yap will use the prize money to bring to life her project Multitudes, a series of collaborative compositions and improvisations developed with prominent Australian musicians Emily Sheppard, Donald Nicolson, Bowerbird Collective and Mindy Meng Wang.

“As a violist, looking out from the middle of the sonic sandwich, my musical identity comes from my connections with others,” said Yap. “That’s why I’ve chosen the medium of collaborative composition to create the pieces in this project, and I’m so excited to work with each of my collaborators!”

Each work in Multitudes is inspired by a bird poem by Judith Wright, selected for the way it suits the character of its respective...