BIOGRAPHY

Dan-Ying Huang is a Taiwanese yangqin performer and composer based in New York. Born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 2004, she is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Composition at Manhattan School of Music, where she studies with Ashkan Behzadi and holds a Presidential Award scholarship. Her musical practice has grown from Chinese instrumental performance to encompass contemporary chamber music, cross-cultural instrumentation, and the exploration of sound. Her extensive training on the yangqin continues to inform her sensitivity to attack, resonance, timbral detail, and decay.
Huang began studying the yangqin at the age of seven. Her principal teacher is Hsiu-Yi Lai (賴秀宜), and she has also received instruction from Haiying Yu (于海英). She completed the seven-year integrated program in the Department of Chinese Music at Tainan National University of the Arts in 2026. Alongside her yangqin studies, she trained in piano with 陳淑容, 徐翬伶, and 蔡宗妃, and in percussion with 曹郁涵 and 蕭曉鈴. These experiences broadened her understanding of touch, articulation, rhythm, and instrumental color, gradually extending her interests from individual performance to musical structure and the relationships between instruments.
As a yangqin performer, Huang qualified for the national finals of Taiwan’s National Student Music Competition on five consecutive occasions and received second place with the highest distinction rating. In 2022, she received the Gold Award in the Professional A, Youth Division of the China Regional Finals of the International Huayue Cup Chinese Instrumental Music Competition. In 2019, she performed Chun (春, “Spring”) at the Büyükçekmece International Culture and Art Festival in Turkey, where the participating ensemble received a Best Music Award. Her experiences in competitions and international exchange contributed to her development as a soloist and collaborative musician.
Her performance activities encompass solo recitals, concerto appearances, and ensemble collaborations. In 2021, she performed 長尾山娘 in the “Nanyi New Talents” concert. She presented her yangqin recital 珍稀 in 2022 and performed 樓蘭女 in 2023. In 2024, she appeared in the “Nanyi Stars” concert, performing “Future,” the third movement of the yangqin concerto Pangu (盤古), and recorded a version of 年少 with piano accompaniment. Through this repertoire, she explored the yangqin’s melodic, rhythmic, narrative, and timbral possibilities.
In 2025, Huang was selected for New Taipei City’s “Rising Stars” program. On September 27, she presented 珍稀 II at the New Taipei City Arts Center Recital Hall. The program included 春, 雙闕, 長尾山娘, 櫻花鉤吻鮭, and her own composition 森林 (“Forest”). By bringing performance and composition into the same program, the recital reflected her developing identity as both an interpreter of music and a creator of new work.
On March 20, 2026, Huang presented Dan・Yin (丹・音), a concert of yangqin performance and original compositions at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying). The concert brought together different aspects of her musical training and marked the culmination of her studies at Tainan National University of the Arts. Among the works presented was Monolog (單音), a yangqin duo inspired by her seven years at the university, translating personal memories into musical dialogue and relationships between sounds. The concert marked an important stage in her transition toward a practice increasingly centered on composition.
Huang began composing at seventeen and studied composition with Pei-Yi Lee (李沛憶). Drawing on her background in Chinese instrumental music, she has developed an interest in contemporary timbral language, extended techniques, and the interaction of different sound-producing practices. Her approach to composition considers not only pitch and rhythm, but also how sound emerges, continues, changes, and disappears, and how these processes shape musical time and the listener’s experience.
Natural phenomena, personal memory, and human relationships are recurring points of departure in her work. She is interested in the movement between consonance and friction, proximity and distance, accumulation and collapse, and sound and silence. Her research interests have also included Bunun eight-part polyphony and the ways in which Taiwanese cultural experiences and collective sound can inform contemporary composition. Through these interests, she continues to explore connections between traditional instrumental colors and contemporary musical language.
Her works encompass string quartet, yangqin ensemble, mixed Chinese and Western chamber ensembles, and solo voice. They include illusion for string quartet (2024), 老人飲酒歌 (2025), Monolog for two yangqins (2026), Yq+S4 for yangqin and string quartet (2026), and Platform No. ∞ for string quartet, sheng, dizi, yangqin, and percussion. Across these works, she explores contrasting modes of sound production, intersections between instrumental timbres, and the relationship between individual voices and the ensemble.
In 2025, Huang participated in the Darmstadt Summer Course in Germany, where exposure to contemporary compositional perspectives and performance practices expanded her thinking about musical materials, form, and listening. This experience encouraged her to continue developing her instrumental background as a starting point for broader sonic exploration.
Since beginning her graduate studies at Manhattan School of Music in 2026, Huang has continued to develop instrumental, vocal, and electronic music projects. Her recent work includes Avalanche for B-flat clarinet, cello, and percussion, which explores connections between natural processes and human relationships through accumulation, rupture, and repair. Her work for solo voice investigates breath, air sounds, speech, and the relationship between audible expression and inner voice.
Moving between performance and composition, Huang brings a performer’s awareness of physical gesture, instrumental response, and sonic detail to her writing. Through collaboration with musicians across instrumental and cultural backgrounds, she continues to explore how sound can carry memory, establish relationships, and open new ways of listening.