Helen Liu Wong

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A native of Potomac, Maryland, Dr. Helen Liu is an active performer and educator in solo, chamber and orchestral settings. She is a member of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, violinist of Galliard String Quartet, and a performer with Chamber Music Hawai‘i in Honolulu. Dr. Liu is also committed to the role of music in education and has taught students at the elementary, secondary, and collegiate levels. She is currently on the violin and chamber music faculty at Punahou School, Iolani School, BYU-Hawaii, and serves as a string clinician at Hawaii Youth Symphony’s Pacific Music Institute since the summer of 2006.

Dr. Liu holds degrees in violin performance from Stony Brook University (D.M.A.), New England Conservatory (M.M. and G.D. with Concentration in Music-in-Education), and University of Maryland – College Park (B.M.) where her principal teachers include Pamela Frank, Philip Setzer, James Buswell, and Daniel Heifetz. Her chamber music experience is molded by members of world-renowned ensembles such as the Mendelssohn, Cleveland, Guarneri, Borromeo and Emerson String Quartets. She has also spent many summers with the Aspen Music Festival (CO), Castleton Festival (VA), Longy International Baroque Institute (MA), National Repertory Orchestra (CO), National Orchestral Institute (MD), Boston University Tanglewood Institute (MA), and the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. Some of her collaboration highlights include Wu Han, James Buswell, Carol Ou, Carol Rodland, Ani Kafavian, Colin Carr, Arthur Haas, and the Emerson String Quartet. She was featured as scordatura violin for Ligeti’s Violin Concerto (1992) with the NEC Contemporary Ensemble. She was also a member of the New York Amadeus String Quartet, and gave spectacular performances of Mozart piano concertos with pianist Chiharu Sai at Carnegie Hall and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. In 2007, Dr. Liu was the recipient of two pieces composed and dedicated in her honor: “Vertex” by Korean composer Yoon-Ji Lee, and “L’ours Chinois” by her husband, Hawaii-born bassist/composer Randy Wong.