International Concert Violinist
Female violinist Yi-Jia Susanne Hou rose to fame on the International concert scene when she unanimously won three prestigious International Violin Competitions in France, Italy, and Spain (Long-Thibaud, Lipizer and Sarasate International Violin Competitions).
Since then, Miss Hou has travelled the world as a soloist with major orchestras in over 50 countries, collaborating with world-renowned Directors and Artists such as Rostropovich, Zukerman, Gilbert, Spivakov, Marcello Viotti, Andreas Delfs, Marek Janowski, and Alain Trudel, together with the London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Radio-France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, WDR Cologne, Czech National Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Ottawa National Arts Centre Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony and Tokyo Philharmonic to name a few.
Beethoven & the London Symphony
Miss Hou recently realized a life-long dream, recording the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra as a tribute to an unique 300 year history of an outstanding 1735 ex-Fritz Kreisler Mary Portman Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesù Violin.
It was during the time that Kreisler owned this very instrument that he composed the Cadenzas imbedded within this Beethoven Violin Concerto.
On the Silver Screen
Miss Hou has collaborated twice with Oscar-Nominated Director & Auteur Atom Egoyan and Oscar-Winning Composer Mychael Danna.
She first performed the violin solos in “Adoration” which won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Festival de Cannes, as well as in the upcoming film “Remember”, starring Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau, set for release in Fall 2015.
Hou’s music video ‘The Devil’s Delight’, produced by Rhombus Media (Producers: The Red Violin, Yo-Yo Ma Bach Suites), is regularly broadcast on BravoTV and she frequents the radio and television waves, starring in numerous Documentaries on CBC, PBS, Bravo!, The Today Show, Canada AM, NHK and many more.
A Musical Family
Born into a musical family, Yi-Jia Susanne had music surrounding her all her life. Aged five she gave her first public performance and at nine years, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto invited her as a scholarship student.
She went on to receive a full scholarship to The Juilliard School where she received her BM, MM, and the distinguished Artist Diploma as a student of Dorothy DeLay, Cho-Liang Lin and Naoko Tanaka.
Music & the Culinary Arts
Yi-Jia Susanne also has a passion for Culinary Arts and has hence begun her exploration of ‘Musical Gastronomy’ inspired by recent research completed by the scientific minds at Oxford University in United Kingdom.
These multi-sensory experiences aim to understand and further enhance our taste and sensory experiences, as influenced by sound & music.
Her culinary collaborators include Relais Chateau Grand Chef Jonathan Gushue of Langdon Hall in Cambridge, Executive Chef Tyler Shedden of Café Boulud in Four Seasons Toronto, and this concept has now inspired a first-in-the-world Musical Wine creation: “200 percent: Virtuoso Wine”, which will be launched in Summer 2015, in collaboration with Master Wine-Maker Kathy Malone and Award-Winning Hillside Winery in the Okanagan Valley.
