Pianist Connie Wu wins MITSO Concerto Competition

An Emerson Scholar, recipient of the Ruina Scholarship and student of David Deveau Connie Wu, graduate student in chemical engineering, was announced as the winner of the 2017 MIT Symphony Orchestra's Concerto Competition.  Connie auditioned with the first movement of Rachmaninoff's first piano concerto.  The competition prize is a performance with the MIT Symphony Orchestra this spring.  Violinist Grace Yin, a sophomore in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science was the competition runner-up.   She auditioned with Pablo de Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy.  Grace is an Emerson Fellow and studies with Angelo Xiang Yu.

As winner, Connie Wu will perform the first movement of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concert No. 1 with the MIT Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Adam K. Boyles, in a concert on Friday, May 5 at 8pm in Kresge Auditorium.  The program will also include Vaughan Williams, Dona Nobis Pacem with the New World Chorale.

 

About Connie Wu
Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Connie Wu is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at MIT. Since beginning to play the piano at age five, Connie has performed in numerous competitions, receiving a Gold Medal in the Young Artist Division of the 2005 World Piano Competition, which culminated in a winners recital performance at Carnegie Hall in New York. She has also won multiple concerto competitions, resulting in engagements with the Paducah Symphony Orchestra, Blue Ash Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Kentucky of Bowling Green, and Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras. Music has remained a key part of her life throughout her academic career.  As an undergraduate at Yale University, Connie gave annual solo recitals, and at MIT, she is continuing her musical pursuits in the Emerson Scholar program and Chamber Music Society. She would like to thank her current piano teacher, David Deveau, for his guidance and support, and her past teacher Irina Voro from the University of Kentucky, for developing her musical passion, as well as previous teachers Elizabeth Parisot and May Man.
 

About the New World Chorale
The New World Chorale was founded in 1999 by Holly MacEwen Krafka and John Zielinski with the mission of performing the best choral music and the goal of performing with many of the finest orchestras in New England. NWC’s membership comprises some of the Boston area’s most experienced choral singers and soloists who have performed both locally and internationally with the world’s major orchestras.

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