 The Princeton Festival was founded in 2004 by its current artistic director Richard Tang Yuk, who had formerly served as the Assistant Conductor of the Opera Festival of New Jersey.Recognizing the need not only for opera but diverse programming capable of reaching a larger audience in the area, Richard Tang Yuk assembled a program of five events to run in the summer of 2005, which culminated in a performance of "".Over the years, the festival has grown to encompass as many as fifty different events at venues across central New Jersey, adding public lectures, master classes, and a piano competition to the traditional performing arts lineup.