Music Meets Design

Mei Ching Huang joined The Philadelphia Orchestra in January 2015. Previously, she was associate principal second violin of the San Diego Symphony and prior to that, a member of the New York Philharmonic and the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago. A former student of Keng-Yuen Tseng at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, Ms. Huang has won numerous awards and honors, including first prize in the Marbury Violin Competition, second prize in the National Symphony Orchestra Young Soloists Competition, a top prize in the Hellam Young Artists’ Competition, and a semi-finalist in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand. She is also the recipient of scholarships from such diverse organizations as the Leni Fe Bland Foundation, Peabody Career Development Grants, and the Taiwan Culture and Arts Foundation. Ms. Huang holds a graduate diploma and a master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where her principal teacher was Robert Mann. She is a recipient of a Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation scholarship, through which she continued graduate studies with Midori Goto at USC’s Thornton School of Music. Additionally, she has studied with David and Linda Cerone at Encore School for Strings. An avid chamber musician, Huang appears on the New York Philharmonic Ensembles chamber music series, Philadelphia Orchestra chamber series. She is also the founding member of the Voyage String Quartet, formed in 2009 in Taiwan, where the quartet has made appearances at national concert halls and various institutions. In addition, Huang also devotes her time to education and community access through music, such as Philadelphia International Music Festival and the music therapy program for the homeless, in collaboration with Temple University’s Arts and Quality of Life Research Center and Broad Street Ministry. In 2018, she joins the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan as a visiting associate professor.

Cellist, HAI-YE NI is an exceptional musician renowned for her fluid technique, gorgeous tone, and brilliant, expressive performances. She enjoys a distinguished, multi-faceted career as principal cellist of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and as a sought-after soloist and chamber musician. A versatile artist whose performances have been praised by the press as "soulfully expressive" (Washington Post) and possessing a "superbly focused sound" (San Francisco Chronicle), Ms. Ni has performed on classical stages around the world, appearing as soloist with symphony orchestras including, Chicago, San Francisco, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Vancouver, Singapore, the Orchestre National de Paris, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony, China Philharmonic, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. Her recital credits include the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and she has collaborated with some of today's foremost artists, including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lang Lang, Jeffrey Kahane, and Yefim Bronfman, and violinists Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham, Christian Tetzlaff, and Pinchas Zukerman. Among her festival credits are Ravinia, Marlboro, Santa Fe, Aspen, Spoleto, La Jolla, Kuhmo, and Pablo Casals. Hai-Ye Ni was born in Shanghai, China and began her cello studies with her mother and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She also studied with Irene Sharp at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Joel Krosnick at The Juilliard School, and with William Pleeth in London.