WANCHI HUANG, Associate Professor
Wanchi, born in 1970, began violin lessons with her mother in her native country Taiwan at the age of six after initially studying a year and a half of piano. Before the age of 13, she had won numerous Taiwan-wide competitions in both violin and piano including the Taiwan National Violin Competition at age 12. At age 13, she made a decision to concentrate on violin and came to the United States to study with Daniel Heifetz and Shirley Givens at the Peabody Conservatory Preparatory Division, later doing so while concurrently attending the Baltimore School for the Arts. At age 15, she made her solo debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Catherine Comet, and was praised by the National Review, Inc., as having “performed with extraordinary self possession and command….” (COPYRIGHT 1986 National Review, Inc.).
Wanchi has received her Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music in 1990, her Masters of Music from The Julliard School in 1992, and her Doctor of Music from the Indiana University School of Music in 1996. Her teachers included Jasha Brodsky, Jaime Laredo, Dorothy Delay, Naoko Tanaka, and Franco Gulli. She has appeared in the master classes of Isaac Stern, Joseph Gingold, Lorand Fenyves, and Camilla Wicks. She was twice a recipient of a fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival and once of a full scholarship at the Banff Center of the Arts in Alberta, Canada. She has given highly acclaimed recitals and chamber music performances in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Minnesota, Virginia, Taiwan, and Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in Washington D.C. Her performances have been aired numerous times on WFLN, the classical radio station in Philadelphia, as well as on WQXR in New York City. She has presented numerous master classes, as well as served as an adjudicator in string competitions domestically and internationally. She was honored to be invited as an adjudicator to the 60th Hong Kong Music School Festival in 2008. She has also taught full-time for a year at Tunghai University in Taichung Taiwan before accepting her current teaching position at the James Madison University School of Music in 1998, where she is currently an associate professor of violin.
Email: huangwx@jmu.edu
