After coming to the US in 1991 --

A pioneer in advancing guzheng (as well as other Chinese instruments) learning tradition from casual to highly competitive approach in the western world, Yang Yi has never stopped working hard to create real opportunities for Chinese instrument learners in the US. without her commitment in pursuing, the Chinese Instrument Competition programs would not have been possibly established within the world largest and most respectful music teacher organization family - "Music Teacher National Association" today, the first of its kind and level in the mainstream western music education world.

In 1999, Yang Yi founded New Jersey's first non-profit professional Chinese music organization - Eastern Culture & Performing Arts Center. Through its broad education & performance programs, it has delighted and instructed New Jerseyans as well as residents of surrounding states with the highest caliber of Chinese music available.

On March 25, 2007, inspired and Instrumentalised by Yang Yi, for the first time in MTNA (Music Teachers National Association, the world's largest music teacher assoc.) history, NJMTA (NJ Chapter) included Chinese Instruments into its formal annual competition programs (Spring Recital Audition and Fall Young Musicians Instruments Competition). It becomes a milestone for Chinese music in the western music world. Finally, for the first time in history, the none-Western instruments are being formally recognized by the academic Western music world. .

On October 13, 2007, entrusted and appointed by the CCTV (the largest TV station in China) competition committee, Yang Yi, the director of ECPAC, led the US Eastern Regional Competition committee team hosted the "2007 CCTV Chinese Folk Instruments TV Competition, US Eastern Regional Competition" in Edison, New Jersey. The winners from the East Region Competition entered directly into the second round of the national competition in Beijing. 52 participants from the 6 surrouding states joined the competition. Yang Yi's students won 3 First places, 4 Second Places and 3 Second Places in different categories.

On November 4, 2007, again, founded and directed by Yang Yi, the 1st Chinese instrument competition of its kind in America (as well as the whole western world), was successfully presented by the American mainstream music organization, NJMTA, the 1st in its 150 years of history to include non-western instruments in its annual competition program.

Before coming to the US in 1991 --

Entrusted and appointed by her mentor Prof. Qiu DaChen, Dean of Instrument Department of China conservatory of Music, Ms. Yang started taking a more challenging job in the China Conservatory of Music upon Prof. Qiu's request. She started teaching several self-funded "probationary" students (self- paying tuition while others were fully funded by the government) in addition to her main role in teaching conservatory's officially enrolled students (for the competitiveness, the best conservatories only acceptes one to two guzheng students in each year nationally back then). The good news was that, not only all her self-funded students passed the national competition and became the officially-enrolled students the year after, most of them also surpassed the others in the class and became top guzheng major students in the conservatory.

Besides the successful teaching record from her conservatory full-time students, her private students also appeared to be exceptionally prominent in different performances and competitions, thus were all accepted by two of China's prestigious conservatories - China Conservatory of Music and the Central Conservatory of Music. Two of her students (Mao Ya and Wang Guan) were even accepted simultaneously by the Central Conservatory of Music under an exceptional approval notice (one person quota were originally given in that year) granted by the China Ministry of Culture.

Before coming to the US, many of Ms. Yang's students repeatedly won many of China's national and international prizes (there were not many competitions as it has today by then). Because of these tracking records, Ms. Yang was then rewarded couple of times Outstanding Teacher awards from the government. Three of her students have even won three consecutive years of the first prize awards at the "Beijing Young Musisians Competition" (by MaoYa, LiuLinlin, and YangYang respectively). Couple of her students received prizes at the "1989 ART Cup China Musical Instrument International Competition", the first international instruments competition in China.

Now, these former young students have already become respectful Guzheng masters, teachers, renowned guzheng soloists and concertmasters, serving at China's most renowed music groups, such as Chinese National Orchestra, China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra, China National Folk Music & Dance Group, China National Academy of Drama, Central Conservatory of Music, etc. Among them are MaoYa, WangGuan, ZhangLu, SunXin, LiuYaNing, YangYang, LiuXiaoYan, TianYue and etc.