Visa Trouble Postpones TwoSet Violin's U.S. West Coast Tour Plans

July 11, 2025, 2:11 PM · TwoSet Violin has been forced to postpone five of its World Tour concerts scheduled for July in the United States, due to the rejection of violinist Brett Yang's visa.

TwoSet Violin: Brett Yang and Eddy Chen.

TwoSet, the classical comedy duo that includes violinist Yang and Eddy Chen, was scheduled for concerts in early July with the San Francisco Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Seattle Symphony and in Los Angeles. Those concerts have been postponed and will likely be rescheduled for this fall. Other U.S. and Canada concerts on TwoSet's World Tour remain scheduled as originally planned, including stops this fall in Vancouver, New Jersey, Philadelphia, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Toronto,

The two applied for their visas through an agency in April. By the end of April, Eddy was approved. In May, there was a "request for evidence" for Brett's application. Symphony orchestras from the U.S. - like the San Francisco Orchestra - wrote letters vouching for them, confirming fact that Brett was coming to perform in scheduled concerts. But a few weeks later, the visa was officially rejected. Brett applied again at the end of May, with more evidence and people vouching for them. But in early June, it was rejected again.

Brett's visa application was nearly identical to Eddy's visa. "We basically have the same resume," Brett said. Brett and Eddy were both born in Taiwan and moved with their families to Australia as children. They got to know each other as the youngest members of a youth orchestra and later as students at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in Brisbane, and they have been making Youtube videos as TwoSet Violin since 2013.

"We've never had our visas rejected before," Eddy said via Youtube (see the video below). "But it does feel like today's climate is tricker for the United States."

During the process, they continued to prepare for the concerts - creating new scripts, doing pre-production, starting rehearsals, etc.. But when Brett's visa was rejected again in early June, they realized that they were running out of time to make it work, and they made the decision to postpone the July concerts.

"We're doing everything we can," Brett said. "We've reached out to a lot of people we know who should be able to help push this through."

"We've been to the States many times, we have fans there, we know many people there," Eddy said. "We're joking to try to cope, but this is a pretty depressing situation."

You might also like:

* * *

Enjoying Violinist.com? Click here to sign up for our free, bi-weekly email newsletter. And if you've already signed up, please invite your friends! Thank you.

Replies

Stan Yates

July 12, 2025 at 02:24 AM · I wonder if “Enhanced Screening and Social Media Vetting for Visa Applicants” turned up comments about government officials, Palestinian rights, etc. That would be scary.

Steve Jones

July 12, 2025 at 05:40 AM · A "pretty depressing situation" indeed, to have have one's credentials questioned and considered unsatisfactory on unspecified grounds. And of course anyone speaking out against such behaviour by officialdom risks attracting similar treatment themselves.

Paul Deck

July 12, 2025 at 12:17 PM · Shucks .. maybe I'll have to travel to Canada to see these guys.

Will Wilkin

July 12, 2025 at 01:13 PM · Another example of the xenophobic and hyper-politicized amateurism of the Trump administration. The people who voted for this don't buy symphony tickets and will never read about this. They feel safer under fascist styles of authority as described by their selected propaganda sources.

This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.

Visa Trouble Postpones TwoSet Violin's U.S. West Coast Tour Plans

Replies

Subscribe

Laurie's Books