Huang, Cham-Ber

views updated

Huang, Cham-Ber

Huang, Cham-Ber, Chinese-American harmonica player and manufacturer; b. Shanghai, Oct. 17, 1925. He commenced playing the harmonica when he was 6, and later studied violin, theory, and composition at the Shanghai School of Music (1945–49) and St. John’s Univ. in Shanghai (B.A., 1949). He went to the U.S., where he taught at N.Y’s Turtle Bay Music School (1958–76) and at the Grand Teton Music Festival in Teton Village, Wyo. (1975–79). He also toured widely as a harmonica virtuoso, from 1979 making regular tours of China, where he helped to make his instrument popular. In 1983 he formed Huang Harmonics, a manufacturing firm in Farmingdale, N.Y.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire