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 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 Maurice Ravel International Composition Competition (semi-finalist), and the 2019 Artemis Film Festival “Women Powered Music" (finalist). In 2018, her orchestra piece “Heritage of Hakka” was 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 wind band and ensemble scores have been published by Golden Hearts Publications (Japan). In recent years, Huang's works have been increasingly performed throughout the European, Asian, and American continents.
Reviews
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"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.
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"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.
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"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.
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"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 .
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" … 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.
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"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.