Horn playing runs in Yun Zeng’s family. Both his grandfather and his father were professional players of the instrument. The soft, flexible sound fascinated Yun Zeng from an early age. He received his first horn lessons at the age of six from his father, who was the principal horn of the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra. A television recording of Schumann’s Konzertstück for Four Horns with the Berlin Philharmonic, featuring orchestra members Stefan Dohr and Georg Schreckenberger in the solo quartet, impressed him so deeply that he began to dream of one day becoming part of that ensemble. At the age of ten, Yun Zeng stepped in for an ill horn player of the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra and discovered how fulfilling it is to perform in an orchestra. “I realized this is my dream job.”
In 2011, Yun Zeng moved to Beijing to study at the conservatory there in the class of Quan Wen. In 2019/20, he studied at the Haute École de Musique de Genève with Bruno Schneider. He is a multiple prizewinner of major international competitions, including first prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019, as well as second prize at the 70th ARD International Music Competition in 2021 and the Prague Spring Competition in 2018. In 2022, he became principal horn of the Staatskapelle Berlin. From there, he moved in the 2024/25 season to the Berlin Philharmonic in the same position.