Early career in music

Yan won the International Concert Alliance Competition and a laureate of the International Young Artist Piano Competition in Washington, D.C. In addition, she is a two-time winner of the Music Teachers National Association Competition of Eastern New Jersey, and prize-winning alumnus of the 2004 New York Piano Competition. Her awards include four-time First Prize winner of the Steinway Society Competition,^[3] First Place in the Battleground Symphony Concerto Competition,^[4] Grand Prize in the Bookstaber Memorial Piano Competition,^[5] First Place in the NJMTA Scholarship Competition ^[6] and Grand Prize in the Goldblatt Scholarship Competition.

As Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times describes, when Yan plays “the music literally pulls her off the piano bench; she ranges up and down the keyboard so quickly and with such ferocity that mere sitting will not do.”^[7]

Yan has performed widely in the United States, Europe and Asia, appearing at Lincoln Center,^[8] Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, CAMI Hall, Kennedy Center, St. Mark's, the Eastern Music Festival, Niagara International Chamber Music Festival, and the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada. Solo orchestral engagements include collaborations with the Battleground Symphony,^[4] Rowan Chamber and East Brunswick Chamber Orchestras. She has also performed on the Composer's Voice Concert Series^[9] in New York City as well as participating in the Vox Novus series Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame project.^[10][11] She also provides the music for the Lawfare podcast.^[12]

Journalism

In July 2010, Yan started her journalism career as a reporter for Bloomberg News based in Hong Kong and Washington, D.C.^[2][13] In 2013, Yan joined CNN. In 2014, as an Asia Business Reporter for CNNMoney, Yan covered the 2014 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.^[2]

Yan was a Beijing correspondent at CNBC. Yan covers topics from technology to economy for China and Asia.^[2][14] She works for the Daily Telegraph, a right-wing British news publication, as of 2019.^[2][15][16]