Born and raised in New Jersey, violinist Victor Hsu has built a musical life shaped not only by performance, but by a belief that art can heal, connect, and expand what community means. Seventeen-years-old and a Chinese-American artist-researcher, Victor studies at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, where he performs as a first violinist and commissioning program musician, premiering new works by emerging composers at Paul Hall and Bruno Walter Studio. Equally at home in orchestral and chamber settings, he has appeared on stages including Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and El Museo del Barrio through the New York Youth Symphony.

Victor’s musicianship is inseparable from service. Funded by the Riley’s Way Foundation, he leads 550+ volunteers across 50+ chapters in 13 countries and 19 states, organizing 150+ therapeutic arts programs for over 5,000 patients. His work has brought student performers into hospitals, nursing homes, and healing-centered community spaces, including a featured performance at TEDx. What began as a belief that every person deserves access to beauty and comfort has become a movement powered by young musicians worldwide.

That same sense of responsibility inspired Victor to found the Panacea Health Institute, a youth-driven public health and hunger-relief organization. Under his leadership, PHI has served 456 families and 1,658 students, launched health-literacy campaigns, and operated 15 chapters across three countries, with efforts recognized on DaAi National Television. At the Tzu Chi Foundation, he is also a weekly clinic and pantry student leader, coordinating medical-supply management across ophthalmology, dentistry, and general medicine and helping serve 400+ community members each week.

Beyond music and service, Victor is deeply committed to biomedical research. He is a published co-author in Pharmaceutical Research through the Wu Lab at Taipei Medical University, where he contributed to NIH-funded pharmacology work on dietary phytochemicals for epigenetic cancer treatment. At Rutgers University, he became a sole-author in the Journal of Research High School, analyzing therapeutic access disparities in Alzheimer’s pharmacology. At Yale University, he works with the Abrams Lab on maternal health, using qualitative data from fibroid patients to guide postpartum care initiatives implemented in Boston hospitals.

Victor brings the same attention to rigor and empathy into biomedical debate, serving as Captain of the BCA HOSA Biomedical Debate Team, earning an International Silver Medal and a New Jersey State Gold Medal, supported by a sponsorship from Valley Health Hospital. He also contributes to patient care directly as a Pediatric ICU intern and music therapist at the Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital, shadowing intensivists across neuro, cardiac, and oncology cases while providing music to support young patients’ emotional well-being.

Across everything he does , Victor is guided by a single intention: to use knowledge and art in service of people. His work lives where music meets public health, where science meets care, and where young people transform compassion into action.

Outside of all this, he can usually be found improvising with friends, studying pathways in a pharmacology textbook, helping younger musicians tune before rehearsal, or trying every new ramen place he can find.