Xiaoxiao Qiang

Xiaoxiao Qiang has been a top prizewinner in many national and international competitions, including Second Prize in the 2011 Schmidbauer International Young Artist Competition, First Prize in the 2011 Ruth Burr String Competition, the Violin Performance Award in the 2009 Corpus Christi International String Competition, and the Third Prize of the Tuesday Musical Club String Competition in San Antonio. In 2008 she was the Grand Prize winner of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition in Singapore, and in 2010 was one of only 40 violinists invited to compete in the Eighth Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.

Originally from China, Qiang began playing the violin at the age of four under her father’s instruction. After attending the middle and high school attached to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing from 1999 to 2005, she received a full scholarship with living stipend to study in the Bachelor of Music program at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, where she studied with the head of the string faculty, Qian Zhou. Qiang then completed a Master of Music degree in violin performance under Cho-Liang Lin at Rice University, where she receieved the Dr. Joseph A. and Ida Kirkland Mullen Scholarships, the University’s highest scholarship awarded to any student of the year.

Qiang has performed extensively as a chamber musician and soloist. She is the founding violinist of the Eon Trio, and with them toured throughout Asia. She represented the string quartet of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, which performed at the state banquet hosted in honor of H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in April 2007 and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in March 2006. She has collaborated as a chamber musician with renowned artists such as the Tokyo String Quartet, Cho-Liang Lin, Kyoko Takezawa, Robert McDuffie, Augustin Hadelich, and Jian Wang. As a soloist, she recorded “La Rosée Fond” by Kawai Shui, which was released on Ablaze Records in 2008.

Qiang has also participated in many distinguished music festivals. She was invited to perform at La Jolla Summerfest , Tongyeong International Music (Korea) , and was the chamber music artist at the Texas Piano Festival, and received a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival and School for 2009-10 and 2012. She has also performed in the Spoleto Festival. In December 2010, Qiang performed as part of the New York String Orchestra Seminar under renowned musician Jaime Laredo at Carnegie Hall.

Along with her successes as a soloist, Xiaoxiao Qiang is also an experienced and accomplished orchestral musician. She has performed with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and was a member of Singapore Festival Orchestra during her studies in Singapore. In 2011, she joined the First Violin Section of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra after winning an international audition from a field of over 100 candidates.