Sirena Huang

Huang started her violin lessons at the age of four with Mrs. Linda Fiore at the Hartt School. Later, she began studying violin with Mr. Pang at his home in Avon, Connecticut. She was 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 orchestras with which she has played 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, in Aspen, Colorado and at the Eastern Music Festival, and she 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. In 2007, she appeared on Ted. Huang graduated from The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut as part of the Class of 2012.

In 2015, she won 3rd prize at the Singapore International Violin Competition. While in 2016, she also won 3rd prize at the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition.

In February 2017, Sirena was awarded First Prize at the Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition[4] and in March, she was awarded the winner of the New York Concert Artist.[5]

Huang received First Prize and the Audience Award at the 2011 Thomas & Evon Cooper International Competition.[6] She was awarded the First Prize Gold Medal and title of Laureate of the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2009.[7] 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, and in addition 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—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. Huang was also the highlight performer at the inaugural Wealth & Giving Forum gathering in October 2004 at the Greenbrier resort, an event attended by philanthropists Kenneth Behring and Vartan Gregorian, Elie Wiesel, and Fareed Zakaria.

Huang has appeared and been interviewed in newspapers, on TV, and on radio programs including WQXR McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase,[8] WNPR, Hartford Courant, Greenwich Time, Journal Inquirer, CNBC, WTNH, WTIC, WB20, and Beethoven Radio, and gave a performance on the “From the Top” radio program.[9]

• The 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."[10]
• The 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."[11]
• The 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.”[12]
• In February 2006, she was invited to be a guest speaker at the TED Conference, an annual gathering of over 1000 of the finest minds in technology, entertainment, and design of America. TED called Huang a player with “a musician’s soul that transcends her years.”[13]

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