Apo Hsu
Encyclopedia
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
born in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
and resident of both Taiwan and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Hsu served as music director of the National Taiwan Normal University
National Taiwan Normal University
National Taiwan Normal University is an institution of higher learning operating on three campuses in Taipei, Taiwan . NTNU is widely recognized as one of Taiwan's elite institutions of higher education. The university enrolls approximately 11,000 students each year. The ratio of undergraduate to...
Symphony Orchestra and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in Springfield
Springfield, Missouri
Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. According to the 2010 census data, the population was 159,498, an increase of 5.2% since the 2000 census. The Springfield Metropolitan Area, population 436,712, includes the counties of...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
. Her past appointments include serving as artistic director of The Women's Philharmonic
The Women's Philharmonic
The Women's Philharmonic was a San Francisco-based, professional orchestra founded by Miriam Abrams, Elizabeth Seja Min and Nan Washburn in 1981 and disbanded in 2004.-History:...
in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, and conductor of the Oregon Mozart Players
Oregon Mozart Players
Oregon Mozart Players is a professional chamber orchestra based in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The orchestra presents five concert sets in a typical season, in addition to numerous small ensemble performances and recitals by guest artists. Orchestral repertoire ranges from the Baroque period to...
in Eugene
Eugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. She has been a mentor for many young conductors on both sides of the world through her work at NTNU and at The Conductor’s Institute at Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
in New York. Her performances have been featured in national broadcasts in the United States (on National Public Radio), Taiwan (on International Community Radio Taipei
International Community Radio Taipei
International Community Radio Taipei is Taiwan's only English-language radio station. Prior to 1979, the station served the U.S. military community in Taiwan as the United States Armed Forces Network Radio Taiwan...
), and Korea (on Korean Broadcasting System).
Concerts
Apo Hsu's international career encompasses a wide array of guest appearances, residencies, and tour performances. In the United States she has appeared as a guest conductor with the San Francisco SymphonySan Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...
, the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington DC
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
), the Minnesota Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra
The Minnesota Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Emil Oberhoffer founded the orchestra as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1903, and it gave its first performance on November 5 of that year. In 1968 the orchestra changed to its name to the Minnesota Orchestra...
, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra based in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1880 by Joseph Otten as the St. Louis Choral Society, the SLSO is the second-oldest symphony orchestra in the United States as it is preceded by the New York Philharmonic.-History:The St...
, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Detroit Symphony Orchestra
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Detroit, Michigan. Its main performance center is Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit's Midtown neighborhood...
, the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra
Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra
The Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA.The Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra can be traced back to the early 1930s during the throes of the Great Depression. The orchestra gave its first concert at William Penn High School in Harrisburg on...
, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra
Hartford Symphony Orchestra
The Hartford Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Hartford, Connecticut.-External links:* - Official site*...
, the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra
Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra
The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1921 and is now the third largest professional orchestra in Michigan. During the 2005–2006 concert season, the orchestra played for more than 100,000 people in more than 30 concerts...
, the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra
Wheeling Symphony Orchestra
The Wheeling Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Wheeling, West Virginia. Since its founding in 1929, the orchestra has mostly performed at the Capitol Music Hall. But in May 2007, the "Capitol" closed its doors unexpectedly, forcing the Symphony to look for a new home. Temporary...
, the Interlochen Center for the Arts
Interlochen Center for the Arts
Interlochen Center for the Arts is a privately owned, 1,200 acre arts education institution in Interlochen, Michigan, roughly 15 miles southwest of Traverse City...
and many others. Hsu toured Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
with the Women's Philharmonic in an Avon Women in Concert initiative highlighting the works of Brazilian poet Vinícius de Moraes
Vinicius de Moraes
Marcus Vinicius de Moraes , known as Vinicius de Moraes and nicknamed O Poetinho , was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Son of Lydia Cruz de Moraes and Clodoaldo Pereira da Silva Moraes, he was a seminal figure in contemporary Brazilian music...
. She has conducted in Irkutsk
Irkutsk
Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, as a featured conductor. She has appeared on Asia-Pacific
Asia-Pacific
Asia-Pacific or Asia Pacific is the part of the world in or near the Western Pacific Ocean...
stages as guest conductor with Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
's Sung Nam Philharmonic Orchestra, Prime Philharmonic Orchestra, and KBS Symphony Orchestra
KBS Symphony Orchestra
The KBS Symphony Orchestra is one of the most famous symphony orchestras in South Korea. It was founded in 1956 as the radio orchestra of the Korean Broadcasting System ....
(Korean Broadcasting System), and in tour performances with the NTNU Symphony in the Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n cities of Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
. She appears regularly on concert stages in her native Taiwan, including recent guest appearances with the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra
Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra
Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra is a Taiwanese orchestra based in Kaohsiung. It is also the only professional orchestra in Southern Taiwan. Founded in 1981, the orchestra was owned and ran by the city government until its privatization in 2009....
and National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra
National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra
The National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra , also known as NTSO, founded in 1945, is the oldest symphony orchestra in Taiwan. It is based in Wufeng, Taichung.- Principal Conductors :* Fusao Kajima , 2009-present* Chiu Chun-chiang , 2006-2009...
and special appearances with the Festival Orchestra for the 2003 Summer Presidential Concert (Chungli) and the Presidential Holiday Concerts (Tainan).
Programs and Recordings
Apo Hsu has earned acclaim for her flair with both Asian and European musical idioms. She and The Women’s Philharmonic received four consecutive Awards for Adventurous Programming from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and the American Symphony Orchestra League. With this group Ms Hsu recorded symphonic music by African-American composerComposer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Florence Price
Florence Price
- Career :Florence Price is considered the first black woman in the United States to be recognized as a symphonic composer. Even though her training was steeped in European tradition, Price’s music consists of mostly the American idiom and reveals her Southern roots...
for the Koch International Classics label in 2001. Performances with the KBS Symphony Orchestra of Korea were featured on NPR's "Performance Today" in August 2007. A recording of the repertoire of her acclaimed 2007 Formosa Dreaming American tour program with NTNU performing artists, featuring the music of Tyzen Hsiao
Tyzen Hsiao
Tyzen Hsiao is a Taiwanese composer of the neo-Romantic school. Many of his vocal works set poems written in Taiwanese, the mother tongue of the majority of the island's residents. His compositions stand as a musical manifestation of the Taiwanese literature movement that revitalized the island's...
and Fan-Long Ko, was released in 2008. She is also closely associated with the music of Taiwanese composers Wen-Pin Hope Lee
Wen-Pin Hope Lee
Wen-Pin Hope Lee （1967- ） is a Taiwanese composer. His works comprise a variety of genres, including symphonies, theatre, dance, solo works, chamber music, computer music, and multimedia performance art...
and Chao Ching-Wen.
Teaching
As head of the conducting studio at NTNUNational Taiwan Normal University
National Taiwan Normal University is an institution of higher learning operating on three campuses in Taipei, Taiwan . NTNU is widely recognized as one of Taiwan's elite institutions of higher education. The university enrolls approximately 11,000 students each year. The ratio of undergraduate to...
Apo Hsu plays a leading role in the training of Taiwan's next generation of conductors. In North America she appears regularly as a faculty member at The Conductor's Institute at Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
. She has served on the faculty for the American Symphony Orchestra League Conducting Workshops, National Youth Orchestra Festival 2000, the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute 2002 and 2004, and the 2007 All State Orchestra in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
. She has served as a Music Review Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
for Meet the Composer
Meet the Composer
Meet the Composer is an American organization founded in 1974 by the composer John Duffy as a project of the New York State Council on the Arts. It seeks to assist composers in making a living through writing music by sponsoring commissioning, residency, education, and audience interaction...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Education
Apo Hsu received her BA in pianoPiano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
from the National Taiwan Normal University. Her graduate studies in the US began at the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
where she studied double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
performance with Gary Karr
Gary Karr
Gary Karr b. November 20, 1941 in Los Angeles, California, is an American classical double bass virtuoso and teacher.- Biography :Although he comes from seven generations of bassists, he was not encouraged by them to go into music...
. She earned an MM in double bass performance as well as an Artist Diploma in Conducting with conductor Charles Bruck
Charles Bruck
Charles Bruck was a Hungarian-French conductor.Bruck was born in Temesvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire, since 1920 Timişoara, since 1920 in Romania....
. She attended the Pierre Monteux Domaine School in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
for Advanced Conductors, The Conductor’s Institute in South Carolina
University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...
with Harold Farberman
Harold Farberman
Harold Farberman is an American conductor, composer, and percussionist.-Biography:Farberman studied percussion at Juilliard and composition at the New England Conservatory and at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland...
, and the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
with Murry Sidlin.
See also
- National Taiwan Normal UniversityNational Taiwan Normal UniversityNational Taiwan Normal University is an institution of higher learning operating on three campuses in Taipei, Taiwan . NTNU is widely recognized as one of Taiwan's elite institutions of higher education. The university enrolls approximately 11,000 students each year. The ratio of undergraduate to...
- National Theater and Concert Hall (Taiwan)
- The Women's PhilharmonicThe Women's PhilharmonicThe Women's Philharmonic was a San Francisco-based, professional orchestra founded by Miriam Abrams, Elizabeth Seja Min and Nan Washburn in 1981 and disbanded in 2004.-History:...
- Florence PriceFlorence Price- Career :Florence Price is considered the first black woman in the United States to be recognized as a symphonic composer. Even though her training was steeped in European tradition, Price’s music consists of mostly the American idiom and reveals her Southern roots...
, composer - Tyzen HsiaoTyzen HsiaoTyzen Hsiao is a Taiwanese composer of the neo-Romantic school. Many of his vocal works set poems written in Taiwanese, the mother tongue of the majority of the island's residents. His compositions stand as a musical manifestation of the Taiwanese literature movement that revitalized the island's...
, composer - Fan-Long Ko, composer
- Wen-Pin Hope LeeWen-Pin Hope LeeWen-Pin Hope Lee （1967- ） is a Taiwanese composer. His works comprise a variety of genres, including symphonies, theatre, dance, solo works, chamber music, computer music, and multimedia performance art...
, composer