Organizations/Performing Group:

Manila Piano Trio, 2018-present



As an educator for over 20 years, Denise Santos Huang is a coach and mentor to her violin studio composed of violinists of various ages, where her students have qualified for Interlochen Arts Academy, Asian Youth Orchestra, Weber State University, various international online competitions, and have also landed auditions for IASAS, AMIS and professional orchestras in Metro Manila. She has served as faculty member of the Philippine Women’s University, St. Scholastica’s College of Music, Philippine High School for the Arts, and was Strings Division Chair for the National Music Competition for Young Artist in 2017, 2021 and 2022.

Denise has played several solo concerts with orchestra as well as chamber music engagements throughout the Philippines, the USA, Asia and Egypt. She has held leadership positions in various local orchestras such as the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, Manila Symphony Orchestra, and FilharmoniKa and toured Europe with the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra as a young violinist. She has collaborated with the country’s top musicians in chamber music concerts and has also played for many pop recordings, TV commercials, musicals and international acts such as Phantom of the Opera, Kinky Boots, Michael Buble, among others. A founding member of the Manila Piano Trio, she actively promotes the performance of Filipino chamber music and seeks to provide performance and scholarship opportunities to the youth.

She participated in the Managing the Arts Program at the Asian Institute of Management in 2003 and as an arts organizer enjoys performing for and producing charity concerts, hosting foreign artists in master classes and fundraising events for the benefit of educational causes.

Denise holds a Master of Music degree in Violin Performance at San Francisco State University as a Pone, Morrison, Nagel and Creative Arts scholar under Jassen Todorov and the Alexander String Quartet. She received her Bachelor of Music degree and early music training with Basilio Manalo, Arturo Molina and Socorro Medina-Hara as a PREDIS and Battig scholar from St. Scholastica’s College, Manila, where she graduated as valedictorian of her class. A life-long learner, her current interests include Suzuki early violin pedagogical training and music ed technology.