From winning second place at both the Biggars Music Competition and the Glasgow Music Festival during her childhood, Scottish pianist Elaine Yu has long been a captivating talent. Under the tutelage of Jemma Brown, she quickly developed unique interpretations of classical giants like Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart. Her prodigious skill soon found a global audience when she took to YouTube and became an integral part of Tom Binns’ Glasgow Piano City project in 2014, with her uploaded street piano performances racking up over a million views worldwide.
After a brief hiatus from the limelight to study Geology and Physics at the University of Aberdeen—during which she spent weekends arranging pop and rock tracks that gained hundreds of thousands of views on Marioverhrer’s channel—Elaine transitioned into a professional recording artist. Following her 2023 debut album, ‘My Journey’, funded by The Prince’s Trust, she returns in 2026 with the self-funded ‘Timeless’ EP. This latest offering features four original piano compositions beautifully enhanced by the cinematic string arrangements of her collaborator, Shane Thomas.
We sat down with Elaine to chat about the origins of her musical passion, the deeply personal inspiration behind the ‘Timeless’ EP, her collaborative songwriting process, and what the future holds for her career.
First off, thank you so much for joining us, Elaine! To kick things off, when did you first start making music, where did it all begin, and what originally inspired you?
“I started playing piano at six and a half when my childminder, Hugh Caldwell, suggested to my mum that she should take me to piano lessons. Papa has passed away for a number of years now, but my parents did re-tell me the story not that long ago. I started writing my own music when I was 12, at first the couple of pieces just sounded bad according to mum. So, I gave up for a while but the next year, a classmate from my high school who heard me perform piano during music class said I should write my own songs. So, I tried again when I was at home. And that's when ‘Summer Winds’ was created.”
Your new record is incredibly evocative. Can you tell us a bit about this latest release, what it means to you, and the inspiration behind the title?
“The idea to create an all-originals album first came to mind back in 2019, after I had recovered from my first bout of mental ill-health. I had a lot of spare time because I had taken a gap year out of university due to that. I wasn't completely sure of what my originals would even be called back then so I created meaningful names for pieces that I hadn't composed yet and ordered them into a track list in a jotter. It was only after I had released ‘My Journey’, which was my first debut album, that I realised the three originals I had recorded for that album would sound even better if they also had strings as backing tracks.”
“That's when I contacted Shane, who was already my mixing and mastering engineer on my first album, to create string quartets for my pieces. The ‘Timeless’ EP is a symbol to me to make bold moves and to trust in my own ideas for making music. If I hadn't had the initial trust in myself to create original music again after the setback, then the EP would never have come to light. Also, that collaborations can create the most beautiful soundscapes and I wouldn't have been able to release what I have without Shane's help. Lastly, the concept of ‘Timeless’ is that I hope years from now, even after I have been buried into heaven, that other humans will continue listening to these pieces. I hope they are pieces that will never go out of date, no matter the year.”
How did the tracks come together, and what was your songwriting and arrangement process for this release?
“I was 13 when I created the main theme for ‘Summer Winds’, I think the middle section of the piece came around later on in my teens. But yeah, patience is a virtue when it comes to composition. Rarely does a piece come together all at once. Moreover, when I was working on ‘Summer Winds’, as a song with Callum Rae to sing on, we re-arranged the music a bit to make the overall song longer. That became the version we released as a standalone single and this piano and strings only version was the second version that his producer, Jim Lang, sent to me. Jim actually made the accompanying strings backing track for ‘Summer Winds’ as well. I originally wanted to add ‘Summer Winds’ with Callum's vocals as one of the tracks of the EP too, but I discovered I had lost that version after I had factory reset my laptop to clear out my past lecture files from university. Callum wasn't very well at that time, so I didn't want to bother him.”
“For ‘The Loss’, I remember I used to play a more difficult version of it on piano with an octave based right-hand at some parts. But I kept messing up during practice, so I knew that wouldn't fly when it came to performance. After a while, I resigned and created an easier version for the right-hand. This simple change did wonders, and I can now play it wherever and whenever I like. ‘The Secrets of The Universe’ was actually created through improvisation. I didn't even plan to compose that day, I just sat down after watching Star Wars 2 on the TV, and bit by bit, this original came out. The orchestrated version which is the final track of this EP, was created by Shane's Logic Pro X skills. Originally, I had asked for a string quartet version of the piece to be made but Shane had so much fun creating that he made an orchestrated version.”
For listeners diving into the EP, how would you describe the sound, and how has your style evolved since you first started?
“I would describe the sound as classical crossover. Slightly, I still maintain the classical-crossover style of my compositions from my first album, but this time with strings added to it. The pieces sound more cinematic.”
The reception seems to have been wonderful so far. What sort of feedback have you received, and have there been any memorable moments that stand out?
“The reception of my latest release has been great! The tracks on this EP have been added onto several major Spotify playlists. Because I released this EP, my first album actually also got a boost in popularity. Recently, music magazines and blogs have been contacting me to have my music featured on their sites. I've been overjoyed at how much attention it's been getting.”
“But I have had to decline a lot of offers because I felt like the genre of my pieces wouldn't be fitting on some of the sites. Yeah, I sometimes get strangers contacting me about wanting to dance to my tracks on the EP for social media. In fact, I let Tiana Studio dance to ‘The Secrets of the Universe (Orchestrated)’ a while ago. You can see the video on all my socials.”
Looking ahead, what are your future aspirations, and where do you see yourself over the next few years, both musically and personally?
“My aspirations as an artist are to perform on bigger stages more. Very often, I perform to smaller crowds due to the anxiety I had when I performed to larger crowds as a child. I need to remember that fortune favours the brave, and it's good to step out of my comfort zone more in social situations. Musically, I see myself recording two more albums, one which will be a full covers album and another which will be a fully original album. After that, I hope to start recording some original EPs for vocals. I'd be going into the pop-folk-country genre then, and that switch-up would be interesting.”
I don't really have any personal goals to be honest. I never really have. I feel like I dedicate most, if not all, my personal time to building my career(s). Is that wrong? I've started speaking to a life coach this week about this and we realised that I do need to figure out what else to do in my life. It can't be career-focused all the time. However, I think the times when I did focus on other things rather than just my career, it didn't do my mental health any good. A relationship I had broke apart because I was prioritising my career so much and I just couldn't care less about dating back in my twenties. I just ended the relationship because I didn't see any value in it.
“There was a time when I cared about making friends, but it would never work out because I felt like the other people weren't good at doing the inviting out so I just retreated and never contacted them again. I was upset at the time, but my counsellor told me that I wasn't doing anything wrong and it was a limitation of the other party. This made sense because the other person did tell me that he has never invited any of his friends out before. To be honest, I never really cared about friendships in my life up until I was 22. I had friends but it felt like they were just there so I could get help with homework. That was when the nurse told me to make some new friends and stop just working away at my university work 24/7.”
“But since it was never my personal goal for myself, I felt like I was just following instructions from the medical community. In the end, I felt more at peace after abandoning a goal that wasn't working and wasn't even mine to begin with. Sometimes, I wish other people would stop being so controlling of me and telling me what I 'should' be doing rather than what I want to do.”
Lastly, is there anything you would like to say to our audience, and how can they best connect with and support you?
“If you want to drop a direct message or a comment on any of my social medias, you're more than welcome to. I always check my messages, so I won't miss them. You can support me by buying my merchandise, right now, t-shirts are available on the 'Merch' tab on my Spotify page.”
With a brilliant cinematic sound and a clear, independent vision for her future, Elaine Yu continues to carve out a unique space in the modern classical-crossover scene. Her dedication to her craft and honesty about her personal journey make her an artist to truly root for.
Be sure to check out the ‘Timeless’ EP and follow Elaine on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X to keep up with her latest updates, videos, and merchandise.
