2022 IVCI Gold Medalist Sirena Huang captivated a full house at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Saturday, April 26, 2025. A highlight among the many prizes awarded to an IVCI Gold Medalist, Sirena and pianist Chih-Yi Chen performed a carefully curated program, widely praised for its diversity, to the Carnegie Hall audience. It featured standards of the repertoire by Beethoven, Stravinsky and Poulenc, but also works by underrepresented composers Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Chen Gang.

In attendance were many IVCI family and close friends, including Jury President and Artistic Director Jaime Laredo and wife/cellist Sharon Robinson, acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell and wife/vocalist Larisa Martínez, violinist, conductor and IVCI broadcast announcer Joel Smirnoff, IVCI audio engineer Andreas Klein, IVCI Official Pianist Rohan De Silva, composer Joan Tower (author of the 2010 IVCI-commissioned work String Force), longtime IVCI jury member Cho-Liang Lin, IVCI Laureates Richard Lin (2018 Gold) and Bella Hristova (2006), and famed luthier Sam Zygmuntowicz.

Enjoy reviews of the performance by the New York Classical Review and the New York Concert Review.

Following the recital, a reception was held to celebrate Sirena and Chih-Yi, just steps away from Carnegie Hall at the Thompson Central Park hotel.

The following day, IVCI guests were treated to an exclusive tour of luthier Sam Zygmuntowicz's Brooklyn studio, graciously given by Zygmuntowicz and workshop assistant MJ Kwan.

Click the link below to view images from the recital and the reception, courtesy of photographer Ronald Ji.