Praised for her “ferocious” and “lithe” playing (Cleveland Classical), first-year Violin Fellow Beatrice Hsieh is passionate about music as a force for social change in our communities. Her work has taken her across the world, from Carnegie Hall to the BBC Proms, Lucerne Festival and Musikfest Berlin, as well as museums, libraries, shelters and schools across North America. Recent season highlights include serving as concertmaster of the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in the world-premiere run of Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Abels’ opera Omar, and performing new works with Tyshawn Sorey, Thomas Adès and Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Lucerne Festival.

Ms. Hsieh is committed to projects related to social issues both within and outside of music. Notable collaborations include a mixed-media performance of Joel Thompson’s After as a tribute to survivors of sexual assault. This work of video design, self-portraits and voice and violin was showcased in the Silent Fire Project, a joint exhibition between the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Nasty Women Connecticut. She can also be heard in an upcoming album with the New Muses Project, showcasing un-recorded and underperformed works by historically marginalized composers.

Dedicated to arts service, Ms. Hsieh was a Teaching Artist of Yale University’s Music in Schools Initiative, and Chair of the interim Student Advisory Council at the Yale School of Music. For her advocacy and musical work, she was recently honored with the Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize and Student Marshal position. She is also an alumni artist of the Perlman Music Program’s community engagement initiatives.

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Hsieh is a prizewinner of the Fischoff, WDAV and Oneppo chamber competitions, and has performed as a young artist at Kneisel Hall, Juilliard String Quartet Seminar and Alpenglow Festival among others. As founding first violinist of the Belka Quartet, she was featured at the Kennedy Center and has 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 solo recitals as winner of the Tuesday Musical Association Competition, and was a winner of CIM’s concerto competition.

Ms. Hsieh holds a master of music and master of musical arts from the Yale School of Music as Gilmore Graduate Fellow, studying under Syoko Aki, and a bachelor’s degree with valedictory and musical honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Joel Smirnoff and Joan Kwuon.