Dr. Ai-Lin "Aileen" Hsieh

Lauded by the Washington Post for her “burnish tone,” cellist Dr. Ai-Lin Hsieh is a versatile musician with a repertoire that ranged from the timeless classics to the avant-garde. She is equally accomplished as a soloist, chamber and orchestra musician.    

Dr. Hsieh began her early music training on both piano and cello. After receiving the Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance from Soochow University in her native Taiwan, she continued her study at the Eastman School of Music and earned a Master of Music degree. In 2000, she was admitted by the University of Maryland, College Park with Graduate Assistantship to pursue her doctoral study.  Five years later, she was awarded Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Cello Performance. Her primary teachers include such prominent performers and pedagogues as Steven Doane, Evelyn Elsing and Kenneth Slowik. She also received her chamber music coaching from members of the Guarneri Quartet and the Ying Quartet.   

Among the many solo and chamber performances she has given, noteworthy are her collaboration with the late Mistislav Rostropovitch in a cello octet performance in 1997 and her two-week tour in China performing as a member of the Pennsylvania Chamber Ensemble (now Gabriel Chamber Ensemble) in 2019. In addition to chamber music, she is currently the Assistant Principal Cellist of the York Symphony in Pennsylvania. Prior to this appointment, she performed with several orchestras in Asia and America. Their concerts have brought her to major cities including Los Angeles, New York, Taipei and Tokyo. 

Aside from her deep interest in chamber performance, Dr. Hsieh has a passion for training a new generation of cellists. She was a cello instructor in the D.C. Youth Orchestra program and at Montgomery College in Maryland. She coached chamber music at the Pennsylvania Academy of Music. She also served as an adjunct faculty at Lebanon Valley College. Currently, she is an adjunct faculty teaching applied cello lessons at both Millersville and Messiah University, and runs a private cello studio in Hummelstown, PA.