Yu Di (singer)
Yu Di (; born November 23, 1981) is a Chinese classical crossover singer-songwriter, musical actor and educator. A classically trained lyric baritone, he combines his singing career with his full-time teaching position at Shanghai Theatre Academy and gained nationwide recognition after participating in the first season of the singing competition Super–Vocal. Early life Yu's love for music began at an early age as he grew up in a music-loving household and often listened to and mimicked foreign-language pop songs by singers ranging from Michael Jackson to Jacky Cheung. His given name originates from the fact that his father, an amateur musician, plays the dizi (Chinese flute). At age 16, Yu enlisted into the People's Liberation Army and became a drummer assigned to the Beijing Military Region. He was selected to participate in the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China parade. In December 2000, he received an honorable discharge after serving for three years. Prior to his stint with the military band, he had no formal training in musicianship and was mostly self-taught. He and his bandmates were encouraged by their commanding officer to apply the music theory they learned by composing songs, thus piquing his interest in the art of singing for the first time. Career As he did not complete gaozhong (高级中学; grades 10 to 12) and had no formal training in singing, Yu spent the next three months independently studying and preparing for the National College Entrance Examination and Shanghai Conservatory of Music (SHCM) Department of Vocal Music and Opera's notoriously competitive admissions audition. The CCTV featured him in a one-off documentary special entitled "Dream Came True" (圆梦), chronicling his journey from a recently-discharged military band drummer to his admission into SHCM; the crew discovered that he was filmed during the 1999 50th anniversary parade for a potential special feature that never came to fruition, thus enabling them use the archived footage for the documentary. His first instructor at the SHCM was renowned bass Wen Kezheng, whom he credited as being the biggest influence on him as an aspiring opera singer. He graduated at the top of his class and continued with graduate studies on a scholarship, eventually earning his master's degree in 2009. As a graduate student, he taught music appreciation courses at Shanghai University Fine Arts College and was part of the first ever Chinese popera group called "Perfect Vocals of Men" (绝妙男声; Hanyu Pinyin: Juémiào nán shēng) along with three other fellow conservatory graduates. At that time, the domestic music industry was still strictly segregated and divided along the lines of "pop" and "classical", despite the popularity of classical crossover artists such as Il Divo and The Three Tenors among domestic music-lovers. The quartet were forced to disband due to a frosty reception from local music producers. Yu then took up a teaching position at Shanghai Theatre Academy and continued performing both at home and abroad as a soloist. He participated in the 2012 Marmande International Singing Competition and won the CNIPAL Prize,