TwoSet Violin Fans Saddened, Speculative After Duo Takes a Bow on Social Media
Taiwanese-Australian violinists Eddy Chen and Brett Yang, collectively known as the social media comedic musical duo TwoSet Violin, announced this week that they are calling it quits after 11 years of performing classical and not-so-classical music and practicing “40 hours a day.”
In an Instagram post dated Sunday (Oct. 14), Chen and Yang shared a series of photos together as a violinist duo over the years and across their world tours, including a screenshot of them being featured in a documentary by the Australian public broadcaster, ABC.
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“This will be the last piece of content we post as TwoSet Violin,” the caption wrote. “We’ve all grown up together and it’s kinda surreal that we’re ending our chapter here.”
It is also understood that a majority of the duo’s YouTube videos have either been deleted or set to private as part of the announcement. Their merchandise store, TwoSet Apparel, had also announced its closure by announcing its 11th-anniversary sale while supplies last.
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According to Classic FM, TwoSet Violin collaborated and toured with several viral and star musicians, such as violinists Hilary Hahn, Janine Jansen, and Maxim Vengerov, Italian bassist YouTuber Davide “Davie504” Biale, and pianist Lang Lang—who became the basis for their mascot and troll figure, “Ling Ling.”
Before TwoSet Violin, Chen and Yang started as fellow orchestra performers based in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Their plans post-TwoSet remain to be seen.
Shockwaves Across the Music World
As news of the duo’s end-of-performance reached social media, most of its fans and supporters from the world of classical music expressed shock and disbelief. Some of them appealed to Chen and Yang to restore all of their video content on YouTube.
On X, the social media formerly known as Twitter, TwoSet Violin tweeted a simple heart emoji on Monday (Oct. 15) that garnered comments and retweets from fans, who expressed gratitude and sadness.
❤️
— TwoSet Violin (@TwoSetViolin) October 14, 2024
Meanwhile, reactions are most felt on the subReddit r/lingling40hrs, where fans of the duo either were shocked that Chen and Yang have disbanded, saddened by the news and expressed their grief, or coped with it through memes, angered at the way the duo quietly announced the end of their project, or even speculated that the duo was in the process of rebranding itself or going separate ways altogether.
The rebrand some “Ling Ling Wannabes” (the name provided for TwoSet Violin fans) refer to as part of their speculation was the creation of TwoSet Academy. Chen and Yang could provide violin lessons and classes for beginners on this platform.
It is understood that the duo got into trouble in 2022 after Blinks, as fans of the K-Pop group Blackpink are called, accused TwoSet Violin of mocking the girl group in the duo’s music video “Sell Out.” The video is a parody of Blackpink’s song “Shut Down,” which uses a motif from Nicolo Paganini’s étude “La Campanella” as a sample. The controversy happened as the duo prepared for their 4-million-subscriber concert with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in November of that year.
As of Thursday (Oct. 17), TwoSet Violin has 4.34 million subscribers.