Orchestre de Paris Announces New Principal Cellist

The Belgian cellist Stéphanie Huang is set to assume the role next season

Winner of the Audience Prize at the 2022 Queen Elisabeth Competition, Stéphanie Huang will be joining the Orchester de Paris as its new principal cellist in the 2024/25 concert season. 

“I am very happy and honored to have won the place and super excited to be joining this legendary orchestra,” she told rtbf news. 

Huang was born into a family of musicians and began learning cello at a young age. She soon won first prize at the Dexia Competition and made her debut at the age of 12 at La Monnaie/De Munt playing Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. 

A graduate of the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, she studied with Jeroen Reuling, Marc Coppey, and Emmanuelle Bertrand. Since 2020, she has been an artist in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, where she has studied with Gary Hoffman.

Alongside Huang’s role with Orchester de Paris — conducted since 2020 by the Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä — she will also begin her position as Guest Professor at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel from September 2024.

Until then, Huang will be traveling to Belgium and France this summer for a series of concerts at events such as the Much Festival of the Queen Elisabeth Musical Chapel, Printemps musical de Silly, Midi-Minimes, plus France’s La Roque d'Anthéron, and Rocamadour Festival.

Huang currently plays a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume cello loaned by the Adelus Endowment Fund; she has also performed on a 1742 Francesco Stradivarius cello loaned by the Guttman Collection.