Beatrice Hsieh

Praised for her “ferocious, lithe” (ClevelandClassical) playing “of the highest order” (South Florida Classical Review), violinist Beatrice Hsieh (pronounced ‘Shay’) is an accomplished performer in solo, chamber, and orchestral mediums, and is also sought after for her experience in historically-informed performance and new music.

A recent Fellow of the New World Symphony, Beatrice was featured in various roles as soloist, concertmaster, and curator during her fellowship. Highlights include her “superb iteration” (SFCR) of the Korngold Violin Concerto as winner of the Concerto Competition, “outstanding” turns as the titular protagonist in a production of Wynton Marsalis’ A Fiddler’s Tale, and “soaring tone and precision” as concertmaster for Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben. As a grant recipient of New World Symphony’s New Audience Fellow Initiative, she co-created a weeklong festival for historically-informed Baroque performance, introducing many fellows to period instruments for the first time with intensive clinics on historical techniques and style, culminating in two sold-out concerts.

Outside of New World, Beatrice has served as a guest musician with the St. Louis Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Festival appearances include with the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, and as concertmaster with the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra 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." This season, Beatrice joins the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra as an acting violinist.

Also an avid chamber musician, Beatrice is a prizewinner of the Fischoff, WDAV, and Oneppo chamber competitions, and is a previous young artist of the Perlman Music Program, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music, and Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, among others. As founding first violinist of the Belka Quartet, she was 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, and was a winner of the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition and the Anna Tringas Award for Violin, among others.

Dedicated to arts service, Beatrice has designed and performed numerous original educational programs during her time with the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Madeline Island Chamber Music, and Perlman Music Program. While at Yale, she was honored with the YSM Alumni Association Prize for community advocacy and musical excellence, and at the New World Symphony, she was a mentor for the NWS College Track Mentorship Program and 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 honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Joel Smirnoff and Joan Kwuon.