From Clinic to Carnegie: student finds harmony between dentistry and music
By Rachel Boutet
On June 20, Richard Yeh stepped onto the stage at the opulent Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City, sat down at a black grand piano, and played Chopin’s Étude Op. 25 No.1.
“Performing that day was such an honour, but I was definitely nervous before going on stage,” says Yeh, who just finished the second year of his DDS at the Faculty. “Once I started playing, though, everything settled. I felt free, and I was reminded why I love performing in the first place.”
As the second-place honouree of the Amateur without a Professional Degree category as part of the American Protégé International Music Talent Competition — which he entered months before by submitting a recording of himself playing — Yeh earned this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Yeh has been playing piano since the age of four and has come to relish his moments on the stage, even the high-pressure ones, which used to stress him out.
“Performances are really an opportunity to share bits and pieces of who you are through your music. Once I started thinking about it that way, it allowed me to just be myself on stage.”
This special recital served as an apt kickoff to what promises to be a rewarding summer for Yeh. He will be working as a research student under professors Laura Tam and Anuradha Prakki and assistant professor Paulo Henrique dos Santos, contributing to a project called Development and Validation of Machine-Learning Models to Grade Tooth Preparations. The study explores how machine learning can be used to assess tooth preparations and support more consistent grading in preclinical dental education.
Plus, he’ll be devoting extra time to practising piano, a task that is always tough during the hectic school year at the Faculty.
“It’s definitely challenging,” he says. “Sometimes, I used my lunch breaks to practise, and I tried to play whenever I had time at home. It doesn’t feel like work — it’s actually a form of stress relief and helps get me into the right headspace to study afterward.”
Yeh showed talent early on as a pianist and began competing nationally by age 12. He was selected to attend the prestigious Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists at the Royal Conservatory of Music. But it wasn’t until he was about 15 that he started to develop a deeper connection to music.
“At that point, it wasn’t just something my parents wanted for me anymore. It became another form of communication for me — more of an art than a hobby,” he says. “There are some things that words can’t describe. There are certain emotions in music written hundreds of years ago that I find quite powerful.”
Not surprisingly, Yeh finds the expressive and emotional works of Frédéric Chopin resonate with him. “He was such a romantic composer,” says Yeh. “I really relate to his music.”
Yeh has a long list of musical achievements: he’s a three-time Ontario champion in piano concertos at the Provincial Finals held by the Ontario Musical Festival Association, as well as a three-time national finalist at the Canadian Music Competition. He has performed at many prestigious venues, including Toronto’s Mazzoleni Hall at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the George Weston Recital Hall at the Meridian Arts Centre.
As well, he’s played at the Centre for Performing Arts in Richmond Hill and the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga. He has performed at the Seully Hall at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. In total, he’s appeared three times at Carnegie Hall, including at the 2019 American Protégé Summer Gala. Yeh has also worked closely with multiple symphony orchestras including the Milton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chinese Artists Society of Toronto Orchestra, Orchestra Toronto and Northumberland Philharmonic Orchestra.
Knowing that a career as a concert pianist might be possible, but likely very challenging, Yeh always kept his options open. Dentistry always seemed a good choice. With several family members in the profession — including his father, uncle, grandfather and great uncle — Yeh was introduced to the field early on and encouraged to consider it. But it wasn’t until he recognized that, like music, dentistry has a creative side that he considered it seriously.
“I was the only pianist in the family,” says Yeh, who studied medical biophysics at Western University before coming to U of T. “What drew me to dentistry was the artistry behind it. The way you shape restorations, work with your hands and communicate with patients.”
That perspective became even more meaningful through Yeh’s patient interactions as a DDS student.
“I was shadowing an appointment with a patient who was very self-conscious about her smile,” he recalls. “After treatment, seeing her become more outgoing and confident was really impactful. She was also involved in the performing arts, so as an artist myself, I really related to that experience.”
Yeh says many of the skills he developed through years of piano training have translated naturally into dentistry. He hopes his ability to blend technical skills with creative flair will make for a career that’s satisfying for him and lead to excellent care for patients.
“The biggest thing people don’t realize about piano at this level is that it’s much more than pressing keys,” he says. “There are so many nuances in how you play music, and I use that same attention to detail in how I approach dentistry.”
Top photo: Richard Yeh playing at Carnegie Hall in 2026 (Brian Hatton)
Middle photo: Richard Yeh (Stuart Lowe)