Composer Joan Huang grew up and received her early music education with her parents in Shanghai, China. During her teenage years, unfortunately, she could not escape the miserable experiences of the disastrous Cultural Revolution. Under political pressure, she was sent to a farm to accept "re-education" which meant doing heavy manual labour for three years. During her time on the farm, she had the opportunity to learn authentic Chinese traditional music from local farmers.

After the Cultural Revolution, Huang was one of a few applicants (17 out of 17,000) to be accepted at the time of the reopening of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music following the tumultuous Cultural Revolution that shackled ten precious years of talented musicians. She obtained both BA and MA degrees from the Conservatory.

In 1986 she came to the United States to continue her education at the University of California at Los Angeles and studied with Elaine Barkin, William Kraft and Roger Bourland. She became very interested in creating a style of fusion of Chinese traditional musical language with Western contemporary compositional techniques. She has received several awards, including two from Phi Beta Kappa for international students, one Tanglewood Music Festival fellowship and two Aspen Music Festival Scholarships. In 1991, she received her Ph.D. from UCLA.

As a composer, Ms. Huang has had commissions and performances from outstanding organizations and performers, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Boston Music Viva, Boston Artists Ensemble, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Southwest Chamber Music Society, Marimolin, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Ying Quartet, and Piano Spheres etc. Her The Legend of Chang-e won the first prize of "1994 Marimolin's International Composition Contest". Besides performances in the United States, her music has been performed in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Joan Huang has taught at University of California, Irvine, and has given lectures at University of Southern California, University of California, Santa Barbara, California State University at Fullerton and Shanghai Conservatory of Music, China. She is a regular columnist with the Chinese professional magazine The Music Lovers (bimonthly) since March 1997 in Shanghai, China.