Xiaoxiao Qiang joined the First Violin Section of the St. Louis Symphony in 2011. An experienced orchestral musician, she has also performed with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and was a member of Singapore Festival Orchestra during her studies in Singapore.
Born in China, Xiaoxiao began playing the violin at the age of four under her father’s instruction. After attending the Middle and High School attached to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing from 1999 to 2005, she received a full scholarship with living stipend to study in the Bachelor of Music program at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, where she studied with the head of the string faculty Qian Zhou. Xiaoxiao then completed a Master of Music degree in violin performance under Cho-Liang Lin at Rice University, where she won the Dr. Joseph A. and Ida Kirkland Mullen Scholarships, the University’s highest scholarship awarded to any student of the year.
Xiaoxiao has performed extensively as a chamber musician and soloist. She was invited to perform at La Jolla Summerfest, Tongyeong International Music, the Texas Piano Festival, and received a two-year fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival for 2009 and 2010. She has also performed in the Spoleto Festival in December of 2010, as well as part of the New York String Orchestra Seminar under renowned musician Jaime Laredo at Carnegie Hall. She is the founding violinist of the Eon Trio, and with them toured throughout Asia. Xiaoxiao represented the string quartet of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, which performed at the state banquet hosted in honor of H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in 2007 and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2006. She has collaborated as a chamber musician with renowned artists such as the Tokyo String Quartet, Cho-Liang Lin, Kyoko Takezawa, Robert McDuffie, Augustin Hadelich, and Jian Wang.
As a soloist, Xiaoxiao has been a top prizewinner in numerous competitions, including second prize in the 2011 Schmidbauer International Young Artist Competition, the “Violin Performance Award” in the 2009 Corpus Christi International String Competition, first prize in the 2011 Ruth Burr String Competition, and the third prize of the Tuesday Musical Club String Competition in San Antonio. She recorded “la rosée fond” by Kawai Shui which was released on Ablaze Records in 2008. In 2008 she was the Grand Prize winner of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition in Singapore, and in 2010 was one of only forty violinists invited to compete in the 8th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.