Irene Huang is currently a full scholarship student at the Phil and Eli Taylor Academy of the Royal Conservatory of Music, under the tutelage of Dr. Michael Berkovsky (piano), Dr. Conrad Chow (violin), and Dr. Kevin Lau (composition). Irene received her ARCT First Class Honours with Distinction in both piano (2018) and violin (2022). Currently, she is the pianist in the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra and the North Toronto Songbirds school. In 2020, Irene created Autumn Strings – a chamber group sharing their love for music through volunteer activities. In 2021, she founded a youth string ensemble, where students spread joy through music during the pandemic. She also has extensive collaborative experience, having worked with strings, woodwinds, brass, and vocal musicians for recitals, exams, competitions, and festivals.

Irene’s music training and collaborative experience have prepared her to pursue a career as a professional composer. In 2021, she composed “Hide and Seek”, a piano trio and “Yellow Sky Over Blue Mountains”, a string quartet. Both pieces were performed by Glenn Gould School students and won the composition prize at Western University’s Composition Competition. In 2022, her composition “Face the Music” piano trio won first place in the United Nations’ Pitching Peace Youth Music Challenge and was featured during the UN’s inaugural event for the International Day for Disarmament. Irene was also recently selected to participate in the 2023 cycle of the NowBeat Project. Her new composition “From Dawn to Dusk”, a trumpet and French horn duet, was performed and recorded by students at the Juilliard School this Spring.