Susanne Hou

Internationally celebrated violinist Yi-Jia Susanne Hou has left her mark in music history by being the first violinist ever to capture 3 Gold Medals with unanimous decisions at international violin competitions: Concours International LONG-THIBAUD (France, 1999), LIPIZER International Violin Competition (Italy, 1999) and SARASATE International Violin Competition (Spain, 1997). Hou was also the first ever violinist to win the Canada Council for the Arts Instrument Bank Competition for a 2nd time, retaining the loan of the 1729 "ex-Heath" Guarneri del Gesu violin. Ms. Hou would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the anonymous donor for their support through the loan of the 1729 "ex-Heath" Guarneri del Gesu fine stringed instrument. This instrument is coupled with a bow made by her father, Alec Hou.

Many other awards and prizes include first place in the Canadian Music Competitions for 3 consecutive years, the Juilliard Dvorak Concerto Competition, the Juilliard-Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra Competition, and the F. Nakamichi Sibelius Violin Competition at the Aspen Music Festival.

Hou was the subject of a CBC ’the National’ video documentary: "Shanghai Sensation", revisiting her childhood in Shanghai, with her father, Alec Hou, a renowned violin pedagog in China.  She can also be heard performing the violin solos in the Atom Egoyan film "Adoration", featuring music composed by Mychael Danna.

Hou has traveled the world, touring in Canada with Debut Atlantic & Prairie Debut, and throughout the United States, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Croatia, China, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Hong Kong.  Her numerous solo appearances include the London Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Nationale de l’Île de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, WDR Cologne, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Winnipeg Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Osaka-Kansai Philharmonic, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra, Czech National Orchestra, and Slovenia Radio-Television Orchestra.

At 17, Hou performed the most challenging pieces ever written for the violin: Paganini’s Twenty-four Caprices for Solo Violin, in live recitals in Toronto and Aspen. Ms. Hou has also performed all 10 of Beethoven’s Piano and Violin Sonatas in New York as well as the complete collection of Brahms Violin and Piano Sonatas and Piano Trios.

A lead violinist for two seasons now with BOWFIRE, the highly acclaimed production led by Lenny Solomon, Hou has been seen on PBS and the TODAY SHOW amongst the top virtuoso violinists and fiddlers in each genre of modern string playing.

Born into a musical family, Ms. Hou had music surrounding her all her life. Both her mother and father are violinists, and thus at the tender age of 4, Hou began studying violin with her father, Alec Hou. Less than a year later, she gave her first public performance and was received with a standing ovation. At nine, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto invited her as a scholarship student. Since then, Hou has had scholarships and fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival for nine summers, as well as The Juilliard School where she received her Bachelor of music as a student of Dorothy DeLay and Naoko Tanaka in 2000. She then went on to do a 1-year Masters program, and completed the highly acclaimed Artist Diploma Program in Juilliard with Cho Liang Lin and Naoko Tanaka.

Hou is an active advocate of cultural exchange and musical education.

“She’s absolutely phenomenal…”
—Lord Yehudi Menuhin

“It sometimes seems that the world is mass-producing great instrumentalists. What sets Yi-Jia Susanne Hou apart from her many brilliant contemporaries is a style of playing that combines the executant skill of today’s best with the expressiveness of violinists 50 to 150 years ago…I cannot recall hearing a violinist in a live performance who could coax as big a tone out of a violin; she can also draw a fine-spun pianissimo.”
—Robert McColley, Fanfare Magazine USA

"I was overwhelmed by the sensitivity of her playing...she is an extraordinary artist.  The violin plays a huge part in the soundtrack of the film, and her detailed and highly charged performance is full of emotional nuance."
—Atom Egoyan, Director

“Her sound is strangely strong yet delicate; her technique near flawless…”
—The Strad

“By the final round of the competition, Ms. Hou had the entire jury at her feet.”
—Jean-Jacques Kantorow, member of jury, Concours International Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud

“She played the Mendelssohn Concerto like no one else on earth except herself — meticulously precise, expressively poetic, energetically fiery. She sang out the heartbreaking sweetness of the second movement, then attacked the tempo in the final measures of the last movement like the river-horses in The Fellowship of the Ring charging down the Nazgul and sweeping them away. It was overwhelming and irresistible.”
—Stephen Pedersen, Chronicle Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia