Dr. Wanchi Huang

Dr. Wanchi Huang studied both piano and violin as a child in her native Taiwan. Though she had won several youth piano competitions as a child, she opted to concentrate on the violin "because I could take the violin anywhere I wanted." She chose well. 

At just age 14, she made her solo debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Catherine Comet. Huang is currently Professor of Violin at James Madison University School of Music and contributes to the community as concertmaster of the Waynesboro Symphony. Her previous albums include those devoted to the complete Sonatas of Eugène Ysaÿe, to the Partitas and Sonatas of J.S. Bach for unaccompanied violin, and to music by William Walton and Benjamin Britten in a collaboration with longtime friend and pianist Robert Koenig. These are on the Centaur Records label and have all received excellent reviews. “. . . her incisive technique and an exceptionally rich and beautiful tone. . .” by Phil's Classical Reviews, Audio Video Club of Atlanta. Her most recent album, Imagining Worlds: Music for Solo Violin by living composers will be released by Parma Music in January, 2024.

Wanchi is an active performer in chamber music, solo recitals, and as a soloist with regional orchestras throughout North America and Asia, at venues including Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Curtis on Tour, and numerous music festivals, such as at the Aspen Music Festival, Banff Centre for the Arts, Bay View Music Festival, Carolina Chamber Music, Black Hills Chamber Music in South Dakoda, Garth Newel Music Center, and others. Wanchi joined Heifetz Institute faculty since the Summer of 2023 and has been a strings adjudicator for various international and national competitions, including Hudson Philharmonic Strings National Competition and Guanya International Violin Competition in Cheng Du, China. As an educator, she presented numerous times at ASTA National Conferences and has given many violin masterclasses internationally, as well as adjudicating at the Hong Kong Music Schools Festival. Many of her students are now successful arts administrators, educators, and performers.

She holds B.M. from The Curtis Institute of Music, MM. The Juilliard School, and DMA from Indiana University (Bloomington). She plays a modern American violin made in 2003 by Feng Jiang of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Dr. Diane Phoenix-Neal

Violist Diane Phoenix-Neal enjoys a vibrant teaching and performing career. She performs nationally and internationally as a collaborative chamber musician and as a soloist, and her performances have taken her to concert venues and music festivals throughout the world to four continents, including performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Banff Centre, Bowdoin International Music Festival and the festivals of Evian and Spoleto. In France, she served as both the principal solo violist of Orchestre de Picardie and as violist of Quatuor Joachim. Her sound is described as “rich and sumptuous,” and “priceless as it was memorable” (Cultural Voice of North Carolina), and she is a longstanding principal performer and soloist with the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival as well as a collaborative performing artist and faculty member with the Eastern Music Festival. 

Originally from North Carolina, she received her training from the Juilliard School as a student of William Lincer and the Juilliard Quartet, from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, after a ten-year career as a performer and teacher in Portugal and France. An active member of the American Viola Society, she is passionate about teaching and exploring the broad kaleidoscope of viola repertoire to perform and introduce to her students.  

A champion of new music for viola and of music by underrepresented composers, her recitals and commissioning projects featuring contemporary music for viola have been featured at James Madison University’s Contemporary Music Festivals, the Northwestern University New Music Conference, the University of Wyoming, International Viola Congresses in Australia (IVC 35) and Poland (IVC 41 in and IVC 43), in the Music by Women Festival and the 50th Anniversary American Viola Society Festival. Her recent CD When the Spirit Sings, in collaboration with the chamber group Musica Harmonia, features the chamber music of Gwyneth Walker and explores American spiritual melodies and themes. 

Website: https://www.instagram.com/jmuviolists/