Aiyun Huang

Aiyun Huang, percussion (Toronto, Canada), enjoys a musical life as soloist, chamber musician, researcher, teacher and producer. The 2002 Winner of the First Prize and Audience Prize of the Geneva International Music Competition, she is a champion of existing repertoire and a prominent voice in the collaborative creation of new works. Her career highlights include performances at the Victoria Hall in Geneva, Weill Recital Hall in New York, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra's Green Umbrella Series, LACMA Concert Series, Banff Arts Festival, CBC Radio, La Jolla Summerfest, Montreal New Music Festival, Centro Nacional Di Las Artes in Mexico City, Cervantino Festival, and National Concert Hall and Theater in Taipei. Her recent highlights include performances with St. Lawrence String Quartet, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, and San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and her recent premieres include works by Philippe Leroux, David Bithell, Nicole Lizée, George Lewis, and Eliot Britton. Huang's research focuses on the multidisciplinary exploration into the performing body in media technology, theater, dance, and music using percussion as the central voice. She was the PI in "Memory in Motion: Percussion Ensemble as a Lab,” and has published in leading peer-reviewed journals, industry magazines, and book chapters. Her creative work has also been the subject of scholarship in the Oxford Handbook. She is a researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) in Montreal and co-directs the Centre for Brain, Performance and Music Creative at the University of Toronto. In 2015, Aiyun led the inaugural edition of Transplanted Roots: Percussion Research Symposium, and in 2019 she was a member of the Grand Jury for the Geneva International Music Competition. Born in Taiwan, Aiyun holds a DMA from the University of California, San Diego. Between 2004 and 2006, she was a Faculty Fellow at UCSD. Between 2006 and 2017, she led the percussion program at McGill University and held the position of William Dawson Scholar. She currently holds the position of Associate Professor of Music at the University of Toronto where she heads the percussion area and directs the percussion ensemble. Since 2019, Aiyun has served as the Artistic Director for the soundSCAPE Festival in Cesena, Italy.