Zenas Hsu

A Taiwanese-American violinist who "strives to tear your heart out and just about succeeds" (San Mateo Times), Zenas Hsu is an active violinist based in Boston, Massachusetts. His chamber music performance once praised for its "real lyricism and finesse" (Vermont Today), Zenas was recently a prizewinner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Assocation in 2013 as the violinist of Trio Concorde. He is currently the first violinist of the Regulus Quartet, under guidance of Lucy Chapman at the New England Conservatory of Music. Zenas is a resident artist of Chamber Music by the Bay, a performance and education series in its fourth season in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is also concertmaster of a newly-found and rising orchestra ensemble, Phoenix, under direction of Matthew Szymanski.

Zenas's festival appearances include the Perlman Chamber Music Workshop, Yellow Barn, Taos Academy of Music, Music Academy of the West, Icicle Creek Chamber Music Institute, Valdres Solo Academy, and New York String Orchestra Seminar. Zenas has studied chamber music with members of the Borromeo, Brentano, Cleveland, Guarneri, Miami, and St. Lawrence String Quartets. He has also worked extensively with musicians including Susan Bates, Laurence Lesser, Meng-Chieh Li, Robert McDonald, Ian Swensen, Steven Tenenbom, and Vivian Weilerstein.

A native of California, Zenas primarily received his early training at the preparatory division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from Wei He and spent musical summers at Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute and the Hotchkiss Summer Portals. He was accepted at age sixteen to the Curtis Institute of Music to study with Ida Kavafian. Upon receiving his Bachelor of Music degree four years later, Zenas moved to Boston and received his Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Nicholas Kitchen and Donald Weilerstein. He is continuing and completing a Graduate Diploma degree at the New England Conservatory of Music this year.