Tsinoy pianist to get Napoli music award

MANILA, Philippines –  The Philippine-born concert pianist Molly Vivian Huang, appreciated worldwide for her “impeccable technique, depth of interpretation, and consummate taste,” will receive the prestigious 2011 Sebetia-Ter International Prize for music given by the Studies Center Sebetia-Ter in Naples, Italy, Ezio Ghidini Citro, chairman of the Sebetia-Ter, announced recently.

Last September, Huang played to a packed house at the Circle of Naval Officers’ Concert Hall in Naples on the occasion of the bicentennial anniversary of Polish composer Frederic Chopin’s birth. She “mesmerized” the audience of nearly 300 people with her “perfect virtuosity” in “almost two hours of uninterrupted performance, wherein the formidable artist displayed without respite” from her “vast and distinctive repertoire” of Chopin, Bach, Debussy and Mozart.

As a soloist she has appeared with various orchestras, including the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, Metro-Manila Orchestra, the Neues Orchester Basel of Switzerland, Curtis Symphony, China Central Philharmonic-Beijing, Cologne State Academy Orchestra in Germany, Philharmonie of Kaliningrad in Russia, and the COS Young Symphonic Ensemble of New York.

A concertist of worldwide fame, last year she played an Asian tour in Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo and in 2005, she performed in Russia with the Philharmonie Kaliningrad on the occasion of the city’s 750th anniversary.

She has also collaborated with renowned music ensembles and keeps a busy schedule conducting master classes, lecture/performances and giving private lessons.

A  solo CD entitled “Molly Vivian Huang: My Chopin” is set for release in commemoration of Chopin’s birth bicentennial.

An alumna of the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila, Huang received the school’s “Outstanding Alumna Award” in 2008.