A native of Wuhan, China, Sando Shia was born into a musical family. She began studying piano at the age of four and violin at five. For both instruments, her first teacher was her farther, the renowned professor and composer Xia Zhiqiu of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. At the age of eight, Shia continued her studies with Sui Keqiang. She entered Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music at only 12 years old. The following year she performed Paganini’s Violin Concerto No.1 for public at the Conservatory.
Two years later, political turmoil swept over China, and the study and performance of Western classical music was prohibited. Shia’s violin studying was interrupted for more than five years. She was forced and sent into the countryside to work in the rice paddies for two more years along with other young musicians. After the Political chaos, she joined the Central Ballet Company of China as its featured solo violinist. She toured with the ensemble throughout China and Europe.
Sando Shia came to the United States in 1980 at the invitation of Kent State University. There, she was invited to perform and lecture while studying with Si-Hon Ma. 1981 she won the Josef Gingold Award at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival. Shortly afterward, she played a very challenging audition for the legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz. As a result, she received a full four-year scholarship to study with Heifetz at the University of Southern California until 1985. Shia has had the rare honor of being invited to play a duet by Mozart with Maestro Heifetz on New Year’s Eve in 1981. During these four years of intense studying, Maestro Heifetz once wrote “Sando is extremely talented and making excellent progress. She is very important to my class.”
In 1989, after winning a nationwide audition by the CSO, Sando Shia was invited by Sir Georg Solti to join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She was formerly assistant concertmaster of the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and assistant second violinist of the Denver Symphony Orchestra (now the Colorado Symphony). During her years at the CSO, Shia has taught at the Northwestern University School of Music as a lecturer of orchestra excerpts, coached the Youth Symphony of the Central Conservatory in Beijing, China, and at the Affinis Summer Festival in Japan.
