Yanyi Zeng was born in 2000 in Guangdong, China. He has been studying tuba since junior high school, and he was admitted to Xinghai Conservatory of Music in 2019 with the first excellent grade, and had been selected for the Outstanding Talent Development Programme and received the highest scholarship from the school during his undergraduate studying. In 2023 he won the first prize in the China Youth Music Competition and in the same year he was accepted by Codarts to come to the Netherlands to study tuba with Hendrik Jan Renes.
During his studies in China he has participated in more than two hundred concerts, and as a guest tuba player he has been invited to play by professional orchestras such as the Macau Orchestra and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. He has also been a bass brass teacher in more than a dozen secondary school wind ensembles.
Yanyi will join the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra as a tuba academist for the 24/25 season.