Sirena Huang

Sirena Huang (born May 18, 1994) is a Taiwanese American concert violinist. In 2011, Huang was appointed as the first Artist-in-Residence of Hartford Symphony Orchestra.

Biography

Huang began her violin lessons at the age of four years with Mrs. Linda Fiore at the Hartt School. Later, she began studying violin with Mr. Pang at his home in Avon. She is a scholarship student studying with Mr. Stephen Clapp and Sylvia Rosenberg at Juilliard School Pre-College division.^[1] Huang made her orchestra solo debut with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra at age nine. Three weeks later, she played with the Staatskapelle Weimar in Germany. Other orchestra solo performances include New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Russian Symphony Orchestra, Hartford Symphony Orchestra,^[2] New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra, Greenwich Symphony Orchestra, Park Avenue Chamber Symphony^[3] Aspen Sinfonia, Long Island Philharmonic, Roanoke Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in New Jersey, the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra, Ensemble Blaeu Amsterdam, and Modus Chamber Ensemble in New York City.

She has performed as a soloist at the Aspen Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival and has given solo recitals in the Simsbury Chamber Music Festival and Usdan Center Concert Series. She has appeared regularly in “The Great Music for a Great City” series in New York City. Her concerts have been held at venues such as Lincoln Center, Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, Tilles Center, Kimmel Center, and National Concert Hall (Taiwan). In March 2005, she played her solo recital at Bushnell Center to benefit ‘Fund for Access’, a scholarship program for the Hartt School of Music. Huang graduated from The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut as part of the Class of 2012.

Awards

Huang received First Prize and the Audience Award at the 2011 Thomas & Evon Cooper International Competition.^[4] She was awarded the First Prize Gold Medal and title of Laureate of the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2009.^[5] In the summer of 2011, she was awarded the Bernard and Mania Hahnloser Prize for Violin at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.

In the summer of 2008, she won first place at the Aspen Music Festival violin competition. In September 2006, she received third prize in the Wieniawski International Competition for Young Violinists held in Lublin, Poland. At age 10, she received second place in the triennial International Louis Spohr Competition for Young Violinists held in Germany; additionally was awarded the Special Prize of “Best Bach Interpretation.” In December, 2003, she was first prize winner in the junior division of the “Remember Enescu” International Violin Competition in Romania. In the United States, she has won competitions including The Juilliard School Pre-College Concerto Competition at age of nine as well as a Grand Prize of the New Haven Symphony Young Artist Competition in Connecticut.

Since 2003, Huang has been selected three times as one of ten "Exceptional Young Artists" worldwide at the “Starling-DeLay Symposium for Violin Study” at Juilliard School. Huang performed during the ceremony in which the annual Humanitarian Award was presented to President Sarkozy of France. In June 2006, she performed before His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan and thirty other Nobel Prize Laureates—including Elie Wiesel and His Holiness the Dalai Lama—at the World Peace Conference held in Petra. In October 2007, under the invitation of former Czech Republic President Havel, she played in the Opening Ceremony of “Forum 2000 World Conference” in Prague.

Praise

Huang has appeared and been interviewed in newspapers, and on TV and radio programs including WQXR McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase,^[6] WNPR, Hartford Courant, Grennwich Time, Journal Inquirer, CNBC, WTNH, WTIC, WB20, Beethoven Radio and a performance on the “From the Top” radio program.^[7]

• Hartford Courant reported "Seldom have Hartford Symphony Orchestra concert-goers been so transfixed by a soloist as they were Thursday by 14-year-old Sirena Huang... Her musicality is solid, professional and mature. Huang played with effortless technical command and projected fresh ideas in concentrated but flowing gracefulness.".
• Baltimore Sun wrote: "Huang... [had] a remarkable amount of deeply expressive phrasing. Despite her youth, she sounded like someone who has lived quite a while with the score, long enough to feel confident putting her own stamp on it."
• Stamford Advocate reviewer praised Huang as "the text-message age has found its first real virtuoso...Huang unfolded a series of interpretive viewpoints in the Lalo with a depth of consideration in lines and phrasings that revealed intelligence and musicality of great sophistication".
• In November 2007, the New York Times described her performance in a concert to honor Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer, as: “A Mendelssohn concerto exquisitely performed by a 13-year-old violinist, Sirena Huang, brought down the house.”
• In February 2006, she was invited to be a guest speaker at the TED Conference held in California — an annual gathering of over 1000 of the finest minds in technology, entertainment, and design of America. TED reporters called Huang a player with “a musician’s soul that transcends her years.”

References

1. ↑ "Two Rising Stars Join Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky Concertos, July 10 and 17," Asian Fortune News, May 2, 2010
2. ↑ "Sirena Huang Sparkles With HSO," Hartford Courant, March 10, 2012
3. ↑ "Park Avenue Chamber Symphony: February 7, 2010," New York Concert Review,
4. ↑ "Sirena Huang wins 2011 Cooper International Violin Competition," Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 11, 2011
5. ↑ "Sirena Huang wins 2011 Cooper International Violin Competition," Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 11, 2011
6. ↑ McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase: Sirena Huang Plays with The Juilliard Pre-College Symphony
7. ↑ "Faculty/Student News". The Juilliard Journal Online. 24 (3). November 2008. 

External links

• Sirena Huang at TED
  
  • "An 11-year-old's magical violin" (TED2006)
• "Feature A Conversation with Sirena Huang (PDF)," Cleveland Classical
• "The Places I Go: Sirena Huang," United: Hemispheres magazine