Short Bio

Ssu-Yu Huang, a native of Taiwan, enjoys an active career in contemporary music. Her compositions cover a wide range of music with bold and delicate genre. Her music has been performed by professional musicians and orchestras around the world to critical acclaim. German conductor maestro Günther Herbig praised her orchestral work of "a modern and complex style, presenting her own characters and creativity." She has received awards including the winner of the first Call For Score of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan in 2010, the winner of Akademia Music Award in 2023, the most distinguished award of the the 2013 IBLA Grand Prize, the finalist of the Women Powered Music in the 2019 Artemis Film Festival, 2015 and 2016 American Prize (semi-finalist), the 2016 Ernst Bacon Award (semi-finalist), the 2016 Maurice Ravel International Composition Competition (semi-finalist). In 2018, her orchestra piece "Heritage of Hakka" was selected and premiered at the grand opening ceremony of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying. Her compositions have been published globally through companies such as Mahin Media (USA), Mark Custom Recording (USA), PARMA Recordings (USA), Ablaze (Australia), and Phasma-Music (Poland). Her music scores have been published by Golden Hearts Publications (Japan) and Universal Edition (Vienna). In recent years, Huang's works have been increasingly performed throughout the European, Asian, and American continents. She is currently the resident composer of Hotshot Cello Choir.

Reviews

• "Masterfully conceived tonalities and elegant guitar and orchestra flourishes instruct the ear to a genuinely new aesthetic in ambient instrumental music. Guitar Concerto No.1 is a suspenseful and captivating musical creature." The Akademia Music Award in 2023.

• "One movement is better than another, and there are real pearls among them." Vladimír Mikulka, Czech guitar virtuoso living in Paris, commented on "Grand Music of Tang" 24-piece guitar suite in 2020.

• "The Guitar Concerto No.1 of Ssu-yu Huang shows her to be comfortable mixing a variety of compositional styles...... She has done a superb job at instrumentation, both in terms of her use of color and balancing the delicate sounds of the guitar against the larger ensemble....... I found the work to be quite convincing." Karl F. Miller, Fanfare magazine, 2019.

• "Ssu-Yu Huang advances her music idea through colors generated by instrumentation, creating a dramatic feeling of presence in the actual scenes...... Ssu-Yu Huang's composition has a coherent, succinct, and efficient style... The most exciting is the effective use of percussions. No matter they are drums, cymbals, or wood blocks, the insertions are always surprising but just right; they are not for pleasing the audience, created not just for the sake of creation; their appearance fits tightly with what the music demands." from the critics on "Red Cliffs" by Yun-Lin Chen, writer and radio hostess, Taiwan, 2007.

• "Her works rotating conversion into the smart timbre go hand-in-hand with the performers' harsh demand. The Pentatonic scales musical elements carry the lament-like melancholy... " Nagaki Seiji, Music Critic of Japanese newspaper Asahi, 2000 .

• " ...a young composer to be so talented and popular. Her intelligent and talented works have come out one after another. Like many other great composers, she always completes every music work at astonishing promptness ... " Kazuhito Yamashita, Japanese classical guitarist, 1999.

• "I have been astonish by her dynamic guitar solo works and diverse thoughts and sentiments, especially her trio works for guitar, violin and double-bass featured promptness and vitality ... " Keiko Fujiie, Japanese composer, 1999.

Biography

Ssu-Yu Huang, a native of Taiwan, enjoys an active career in contemporary music. She has received awards including the first Call For Score of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan in 2010 (winner), the 2013 IBLA Grand Prize (Most Distinguished Award), the 2015 and 2016 American Prize (semi-finalist), the 2016 Ernst Bacon Award (semi-finalist), the 2016 Maurice Ravel International Composition Competition (semi-finalist), and the 2019 Artemis Film Festival "Women Powered Music" (finalist). Her compositions cover a wide range of music with bold and delicate genre. Her music has been performed by professional musicians and orchestras around the world to critical acclaim. German conductor maestro Günther Herbig praised her orchestral work of a "modern and complex style, presenting her own characters and creativity." In recent years, her works have proliferated and been performed in Europe, Asia and North and South America. During 1997 to 2000, she was commissioned by Kazuhito Yamashita to compose a number of pieces for solo guitar including the "Grand Music of Tang," a suite of 24 pieces inspired by poems from the Tang Dynasty. In 2016 "Colorful Leaves" for guitar solo has been selected in the RCS Guitar Contemporary Music Project and Premiered by Marco Ramelli. Two piano solo pieces have been recorded by British concert pianist Martin Jones and distributed by Mahin Media in November, 2017. "Red Moon" for symphony has been selected and released by Ablaze Records for the fourth Orchestra Masters in spring, 2017. "Wind City Symphony Poem" and "Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto," for wind band were invited to perform in the International Band Festivals, with the latter performed in the 2011 World Band Festival, recorded and distributed by Mark Custom Recording. "A Dream of Red Mansions" and "A Stroke" were selected by the Asian Composers' League and performed in Japan and the Philippines. "Meditation" for guitar solo was selected by Chilean guitarist Marcelo de la Puebla for a Puentes album. In 2018, her orchestra piece "Heritage of Hakka" was premiered at the grand opening ceremony of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying. "Guitar Concerto No.1 has been selected and released by PARMA Recordings in spring, 2019. Flute solo "Tweet Tweet Birds" has been selected and released by Phasma-Music (Poland).

Ssu-Yu was born in 1970, studied piano at the age of six. She began her study of composition in 1987, while she attended the Tainan Woman's College of Arts and Technology majoring in electronic organ and piano. In 1996 she graduated from the Chinese Culture University in Taipei. She studied composition and piano at the University of Melbourne, Australia in 1997. She came to the United States in 2007 and studied with Dr. Geoffrey Gibbs of University of Rhode Island and American composer Barbara Kolb. Now being a freelance composer, she has composed over 90 original pieces and has arranged over 100 pieces to date. The majority of her works were either commissioned or invited by music groups and musicians including National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan Navy Band, Taiwan Wind Ensemble, Hsinchu Wind Orchestra, Taoyuan Wind Orchestra, BYU-Idaho, Yen Ensemble, Hot Shot Cello Choir, Tone-Melody Flute Ensemble, Japanese guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita, Japanese flute ensemble Marronier, Japanese 22nd Century Club, German Aranjuez Guitar Duo, Chilean Guitar Ensemble, Verdant Vibes, North/South Consonance, Czech guitarist Josef Mazan, Chilean guitarist Marcelo de la Puebla, Taiwanese guitarist Alfredo Huang, Seiko Tsai, Danny Yeh, Chinese guitarist Fan Ye, folk singer Cheng Yang Yin, flutist Sophia Lin, Ma Hsiao-Pei and so on. Ssu-Yu's works have been performed by internationally renounced musicians and orchestras in Argentina, China, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, United States, Chile, and Venezuela.

Chronology