US visa denial forces Australian musical comedy duo to postpone start of world tour
Brett Yang and Eddy Chen, TwoSet Violin's founding members, were scheduled to perform shows in Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles in July. Both performers applied for an O-1B visa, which applies to individuals with an extraordinary ability in the arts. Chen's visa application was quickly accepted. However, Yang learnt his application, which he says was 'exactly the same' as Chen's, was denied on May 15.
Before receiving the denial, Yang was asked for further evidence. However, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) later denied his application after deeming his additional evidence as unsatisfactory. Chen's application, on the other hand, was approved immediately and he was not required to provide further evidence.
As a result, the performers have postponed their first five shows. The remaining US performances – set to include Chicago, Dallas and Boston in September – remain up in the air as their agency, KD Schmid, works through Yang's second visa application. The USCIS said as a matter of practice, it generally does not discuss the details of individual immigration cases.
Yang says the rejection was particularly baffling given he has successfully applied for US visas in the past, including for TwoSet Violin's previous two world tours (in 2017-18 and 2023). Notably, they travelled under different visas for their previous tours, not O-1B visas. But because of their growing profile and success, they are using an agency for this tour and applied for the visa for those with an extraordinary ability in the arts.
'It's pretty stressful because there are multiple parties involved,' Yang says. 'It hurts fans quite a lot – people buy tickets, fly to different cities, book accommodations … But we also had orchestras involved and our agency. I wish we could understand the reason [the application was denied] better because I just spent around $6000 on it.'
TwoSet Violin officially formed in 2014. Yang and Chen, both of whom worked at two of Australia's leading orchestras at the time, began uploading YouTube videos of themselves playing the violin while cracking jokes. Their mission was simple: to make classical music more accessible and welcoming. This included showcasing their outstanding musical skills while hula-hooping or wearing Apple Vision Pro headsets, or while wearing wigs and impersonating some of history's greatest classical musicians.
Today, their YouTube channel has over 4.3 million subscribers and their TikTok account has over 1.2 million followers. They were even named the 'greatest string-based content creators of our time' by the London Symphony Orchestra.
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