Beatrice Hsieh

Praised for her “ferocious,” “lithe” playing (ClevelandClassical) with “soaring tone and precision of the highest order” (South Florida Classical Review), violinist Beatrice Hsieh (pronounced ‘Shay’) is passionate about music as a force for social change. An accomplished performer in solo, chamber, and orchestral mediums, she is also sought after for her experience in historically-informed performance and new music.

Some career highlights include serving as concertmaster for the world-premiere run of Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Abels’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, Omar — acclaimed by the New York Times as “one of the best performances of 2022” — and violinist in a mixed-media performance of Joel Thompson’s After, a tribute to survivors of sexual violence involving video, self-portraiture, voice, and violin, for the Silent Fire Project, a joint exhibition between the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Nasty Women Connecticut.

A Violin Fellow of the New World Symphony, Beatrice served as concertmaster in Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben for the debut concert of new artistic director Stéphane Dèneve and has soloed with them under the baton of Jeannette Sorrell of Apollo’s Fire. This season, she spearheads a historical performance festival at NWS. This weeklong event, featuring some of the foremost HP artists in America, will see many orchestra members playing on period instruments for the first time, with intensive clinics on historical techniques and styles culminating in two concerts melding custom lighting and projection designs with music spanning the gamut of the Baroque.

An avid chamber musician, Beatrice is a prizewinner of the Fischoff, WDAV, and Oneppo chamber competitions, and has performed as a young artist at Kneisel Hall, the Perlman Music Program, Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, and Alpenglow Festival, among others. As founding first violinist of the Belka Quartet, she has been featured at the Kennedy Center and held young artist residencies with the Cleveland Chamber Music Society and Madeline Island Chamber Music.

As a soloist, she has appeared with over a dozen orchestras across the United States, has presented recitals as winner of the Tuesday Musical Association Competition, and was a winner of the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition. A winner in the New World Symphony’s most recent concerto competition, she will be performing the Korngold Violin Concerto with them in April.

Dedicated to arts service, Beatrice has designed and performed original educational programs during various community artist residencies. At the Yale School of Music, she was a Teaching Artist for the Music in Schools Initiative, chair of the interim Student Advisory Council, and was honored with the YSM Alumni Association Prize for community advocacy and musical excellence. At the New World Symphony, she is a Medellín Musician Exchange Teaching Artist, working with Iberacademy fellows both remotely and in-person in Colombia.

Beatrice holds a Master of Music and a Master of Musical Arts from the Yale School of Music as Gilmore Graduate Fellow, studying under Syoko Aki, and a Bachelor of Music with valedictory and musical honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Joel Smirnoff and Joan Kwuon.