BIO

A professional harpist based in Houston, Cindy Qin is a passionate performer and teacher. She connects with audiences through her work as an orchestral, collaborative, and solo musician.

Ms. Qin frequently performs with orchestras across the country, including the Houston Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, Omaha Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Santa Rosa Symphony, and New World Symphony. In the summer of 2019, she was a member of the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra. Additionally, she was an orchestral fellow at the Texas Music Festival Orchestral Institute in 2016 and 2017 and attended the Round Top Music Festival in 2015.

During the summers, Ms. Qin has traveled around the world to perform. She attended the World Harp Congress in Hong Kong in 2017, where she performed in a masterclass with Alice Giles and was a winner of the mock audition. In the same year, she also performed chamber music, in Nantucket, MA, with the Rossini Club, a chamber music initiative. In 2014, Ms. Qin attended the World Harp Congress in Sydney, Australia, performing with Hong Kong Youth Harp Ensemble and playing in a masterclass with Maria Luisa Rayan. She has also participated in the Saratoga Harp Colony and the Young Artists Harp Seminar, where she performed with harp ensembles and in masterclasses led by Judy Loman, Elizabeth Hainen, Maria Luisa Rayan, and Susan Bennett Brady. 

In 2014, Ms. Qin made her solo debut with the Suburban Symphony Orchestra after winning the concerto competition. She was also the first prize-winner of the Houston Tuesday Musical Club’s Ruth Burr Competition for Instrumentalists in 2017, the San Antonio Tuesday Musical Club’s Young Artists Competition in Strings in 2016, and the College Division of the 2017 American Harp Society in Houston. She was a finalist of the American Harp Society's Anne Adams Awards in 2018.

An advocate for bringing new repertoire to the harp community, Ms. Qin has premiered works by several young composers, including Ben Morris’s Rubbles in a River, Paul Novak’s Reliquary, and Emma Wine’s Capacity to Dream. In 2017, she collaborated with composer Ben Morris and the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts at Rice University for An Iliad. This modern-day play retelling of Homer's classic was the first performing arts project at Rice University’s new Moody Center of the Arts, and was a finalist for Best Visiting Production in the 2017 Houston Theater Awards.

A recipient of a full-tuition scholarship throughout both her undergraduate and graduate studies at Rice University, Ms. Qin received her Bachelor of Music Degree with "Distinction in Research and Creative Works" in 2018 and received her Master of Music in 2020, studying with Paula Page, former principal harpist of the Houston Symphony. Her previous private instructors include Trina Struble, principal harpist of the Cleveland Orchestra, Pingqiu Yue, her grandmother, and Ni Yan.