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Apo Ching-Hsin
Hsu
Conductor-in-Residence
(July
18-22, 2005)
“She generates electricity from the podium in two directions: into the orchestra and into the audence.” —The Oregonian
Apo Hsu is currently in her second season as orchestra director at the National Taiwan Normal University. She recently completed her eighth and final season as music director and conductor of the Springfield Symphony in Missouri. Previously she served as artistic director of The Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco and earlier as music director and conductor of the Oregon Mozart Players, after completing a three-year tenure as Affiliate Artist/NEA Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Symphony.
In September 2001 Avon Women in Concert presented Ms. Hsu and The Women’s Philharmonic on a tour of Brazil, where they performed an all-bossa nova program featuring the works of the Brazilian poet Vinícius de Moraes, which were especially arranged for the orchestra. In the spring of 2000 producer Debbie Allen included Ms. Hsu and the orchestra in a series titled “Cool Women,” which was broadcast on cable television. Her first CD with the orchestra, featuring the symphonic music of African American composer Florence Price, was released on the Koch International Classics label. Ms. Hsu and The Women’s Philharmonic received four consecutive Awards for Adventurous Programming from ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League.
Guest appearances take Ms. Hsu all over the United States as well as Russia and the Far East. In a performance with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., she captivated students in an interactive Youth Education Series. Ms. Hsu collaborates regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra in Taipei, conducting regular subscription concerts as well as a youth series. Her other guest appearances have included several performances for youth with the Saint Louis Symphony, a summer concert with the Minnesota Orchestra, and two recent appearances with the San Francisco Symphony. The National Taiwan Normal University invited her to participate in visiting artist residencies in Taipei in May and December of 2002 and again in May 2003, and she was guest conductor of the Festival Orchestra in the 2003 Summer Presidential Concert in Chungli and the Presidential Holiday Concert in Tainan in December of that year.
This season marks Ms. Hsu’s homecoming with guest appearances with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra at its the 58th anniversary celebration concert and a spring concert with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra and Taipei’s Festival Orchestra. She also will give her conducting debut with the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan and the Sung Nam and Prime Philharmonic Orchestras in Seoul, Korea.
Ms. Hsu has served on the faculties of the American Symphony Orchestra League Conducting Workshops and National Youth Orchestra Festival 2000, and she has been a music review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. She regularly serves as visiting conductor in residence with the summer Conductors Institute at Bard.
A native of Taiwan, where she began her musical training and received a bachelor of arts degree in piano from the National Taiwan Normal University, Ms. Hsu began her graduate studies in the United States at the Hartt School of Music, where she studied with the legendary double bassist Gary Karr. At Hartt she earned a master of music degree in double bass as well as an artist diploma in conducting, studying with Charles Bruck. She attended the Pierre Monteaux Domaine School for Advanced Conductors in Maine and the Conductor’s Institute in South Carolina, where she studied with Harold Farberman, as well as the Aspen Music Festival, where she studied with Murry Sidlin.
Links:
Apo Hsu’s web page: http://www.geocities.com/apo_hsu
