Yi-Jia Susanne Hou: born to play

From 1966 to 1969, the Cultural Revolution swept China. Encouraged by Mao’s Chinese Communist Party, young people reacted against their elders and against history, casting aside tradition. For a while, socialist teenage wisdom prevailed. Anything old was gone; any dissenters were sent to labour camps or imprisoned. Or worse.

One of these supposed dissenters was Alec Hou, a violinist, concertmaster, and leader of three orchestras, including the Shanghai Ballet Orchestra. His mistake, according to his daughter, Yi-Jia Susanne, “was having impure thoughts; performing and teaching Western classical music.” For this he was sent to work in the fields, and spent 33 solitary days in prison. The ordeal prompted him and his family to leave China.

After waiting more than 10 years for exit visas, Alec Hou and his wife Yvonne (also a renowned violinist, currently the first violinist with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony) were finally granted permission to leave, bringing three-year-old Yi-Jia Susanne with them. “I don’t remember much about the plane ride,” Susanne says. “I know I drank a lot of Coca-Cola, which was a big deal for a kid from China.”

The Hous settled in Mississauga; Susanne attended Sheraton Park Elementary, Homelands Middle School, and both Clarkson and John Fraser secondary schools.

Today, Yi-Jia Susanne Hou is an internationally celebrated violinist — a three-time Gold Medalist who won unanimous decisions at the Pablo Sarasate competition in Spain (1997), and the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud (France), and Rodolfo Lipizer (Italy) competitions in 1999. She is also the first violinist ever to win the Canada Council for the Arts Instrument Bank Competition twice. She’s a concert violinist and solo performer, playing with renowned orchestras and ensembles such as Bowfire, the Canadian string company that “presents every form of violin playing imaginable,” according to Susanne. With her various commitments, she says: “I’m booked 'til 2010. This is absolutely my life's calling.”

She was practically born with a violin in her hand. “I’m sure I was practicing in the womb,” she says. Hou began studying violin with her father at the age of four. “He asked me if I was serious about the violin.” After taking the time to properly consider her response, the four-year-old made a commitment to a lifetime of practice: “Two hours per day, every day, rain or shine, whether I was feeling well or not.”

Discipline is fundamental to her success. It helped her when she attended The Juilliard School in New York, where she received her bachelor of music as a student of Dorothy DeLay and Naoko Tanaka in 2000. She did a one-year masters, and completed Juilliard’s acclaimed Artist Diploma Program with Cho Liang Lin and Naoko Tanaka. “This was a steep move for our family financially,” she says. “To help, I took every work/study job I could. I worked over lunch, worked in the library, the mailroom, career development office, edited the Juilliard Journal, helped in the theatre, and babysat whenever possible. I’d get home at 11 p.m. and order Chinese takeout.”

But the effort is paying off. This year she performed the violin solos on the soundtrack to Atom Egoyan’s Adoration, which was presented at Cannes in May. “Mychael Danna’s score is gorgeous,” she says.

And her newly released CD, You Can Never Have Too Many Suites, takes the listener on an exploration of passionate and hopeful folk songs and dances from Russia, Spain, Austria, China, and Canada. Recorded at CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio with pianist Vincent Sangaré Balse, the CD expresses Susanne’s mission to bring people together. “I believe music can create a beautiful bond between cultures. We can all celebrate and appreciate the beauty of human creation.”

In 2006, Susanne and her father were invited to Shanghai, her father to work with students at the Shanghai Conservatory, Suzanne to perform. In a triumphant return performance, her father conducted Suzanne, students, and members of the Shanghai Philharmonic in Mozart’s Concerto No. 4 & 5. For Yi-Jia Susanne Hou, the lessons her father taught her — living and playing with discipline, passion, and hope — have managed to withstand the changing seasons of the world.

Hugh Reilly is the founder of Thatradio.com, where you can listen to his Liquid Lunch radio show every weekday from noon-2pm.