Sunshine Quan
Chinese-Canadian harpist Sunshine Quan currently resides in Rochester NY, where she is pursuing a DMA degree in Harp Performance and Literature at the Eastman School of Music under the generous sponsorship of the Eileen Malone Scholarship.
An avid orchestral harpist, during her time in Canada Sunshine regularly played with orchestras such as Sinfonia Ancaster (Ancaster, ON) and CAST Philomusica (Toronto, ON). Since she arrived in the United States in 2021, Sunshine has been extensively involved in the various ensembles in Rochester and surrounding regions, regular appearances include the Rochester Philharmonic, Symphoria (Syracuse, NY), Binghamton Philharmonic, New York State Ballet, Cordancia Chamber Orchestra, and the orchestras and wind ensembles at Eastman, SUNY Fredonia, Nazareth College, and Roberts Wesleyan College. She has attained fellowships at the National Orchestral Institute (College Park, MD) and Mostly Modern Festival (Saratoga Springs, NY) in the past summers. Her musical journey has brought her across the world, where she gave solo and chamber recitals in North America and China, and toured Spain with the Toronto Youth Wind Orchestra. Sunshine was a 1st prize winner of the scholarship audition at the Toronto Harp Society in 2015 and a National Gold Medalist for her ARCT performance recital at the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto, ON) in 2021.
A passionate advocate for new music, Sunshine has played with the Eastman Musica Nova and OSSIA New Music since 2021 and serves as a Board Member of OSSIA New Music for the 2023-2024 season. She appeared as soloist with Cordancia Chamber Orchestra in performance of Sean William Calhoun’s A Thickness of Birds (2019). Additionally, Sunshine has composed and arranged for solo harp and harp ensemble, given premieres to solo, chamber, and orchestral works, and has worked diligently with composers on new works for harp. Besides the harp and classical music, Sunshine also plays the Chinese zither (Guzheng), and she is an active performer of traditional Chinese music and Irish/Celtic music. Sunshine is currently on faculty at the Greatbatch School of Music at Houghton University, Eastman Community Music School, and Kanack School of Musical Artistry. She also teaches secondary harp lessons at Eastman and maintains a private studio online where she teaches students from Asia and Europe.
Sunshine graduated from McMaster University (Hamilton, ON) with an Honours Bachelor of Health Sciences degree and Provost’s Honour Roll Medal, specializing in Biomedical Sciences. For nearly 2 years, she worked as a laboratory researcher in the oncology departments at McMaster Children’s Hospital and Juravinski Cancer Center. She holds an ARCT Diploma in Harp Performance with First Class Honours from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and a Master of Music degree in Harp Performance and Literature and Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. She is forever thankful to her past scientific supervisor Dr. Theodoros Tsakiridis, and her former and current harp teachers Andrew Chan and Professor Kathleen Bride.