About

Violinist-violist hybrid Christine Wu has been hailed for her “strikingly bold sound” and “technical facility” (Theater Jones). She performs internationally with recent appearances in Chicago, Sendai, Dallas, New York City, Magdeburg, and Köthen, Germany.

 

Named the grand prize winner in the Lynn Harrell Concerto Competition, Juanita Miller Concerto Competition, and Dallas Symphonic Festival as a teenager, Christine was heard as a soloist with several orchestras ranging from one of America’s top orchestras – the Dallas Symphony Orchestra – to the community-based Mesquite Symphony Orchestra. She performed Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the Cleveland Institute of Music [CIM] Orchestra in Severance Hall as the top prize winner of the 2016 CIM Concerto Competition. Most recently, she was named a recipient of an Audience Prize at the 8th Sendai International Music Competition following several performances with the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, both as a soloist and guest concertmaster. Through these performances, she worked with acclaimed conductors such as Hirokami Junichi, Raffi Armenian, Marcelo Bussiki, Karina Canellakis, and Carl Topilow.

 

Christine’s prowess on a second instrument, the viola, originated with her chamber music experience at the Meadowmount School of Music and has since been teaching and performing frequently as a violist. She served on the faculty at Dallas’s The Institute for Strings where she coached and performed with young musicians in a chamber music setting, and has performed on various concert series in Cleveland including Musical Arts Port Clinton and Arts Renaissance Tremont with the Mosa Quartet. Holding a fellowship as a violinist at the Aspen Music Festival and School in 2018, she won the Low Strings Concerto Competition as a violist, and performed with the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, a rare occurrence in the 70-year history of the venerated festival. Since gaining reputation as a violist, Christine has worked with the New York Classical Players, Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra, and Metropolis Ensemble, where she premiered a work by composer Cem Güven, Motiflerin Dansi.

 

 As an advocate for a more multi-ethnic and multi-cultural narrative in the music industry, she presented a full program of works by women and black composers for solo violin and solo viola as one of six finalists for the inaugural Berlin Prize for Young Artists competition. She gave the premiere of Jeffrey Mumford’s verdant cycles of deepening spring: concerto no. 2 for violin and orchestra (in memoriam Robert Mann) alongside the Chicago Composers Orchestra, and has given performances of pieces by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Miguel del Aguila, and Keiko Fujiie. Not only is Christine continuing to discover repertoire by modern composers like Sofia Gubaidulina or Caroline Shaw, but also advocates for music written by lesser known composers such as Mieczysław Weinberg.

 

Selected for leadership roles beginning at a young age, she served as concertmaster in turn with the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, the Texas All-State Symphony Orchestra, and the CIM Orchestra, culminating most recently with the New York String Orchestra in their 50th Anniversary celebration at Carnegie Hall, in which more than 20 alumni of the string seminar, including current concertmasters of major orchestras, performed alongside the young musicians.

 

An avid chamber musician, Christine is a founding member of the Clarion Trio formed at CIM, and after just one year of playing together, were participants in the 2017 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. The Clarion Trio also performed regularly in concerts around Cleveland, in the Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics (M.U.S.i.C.), and as regular performers for the retirement community at Judson Manor. In New York City, Christine performs regularly in Groupmuse house concerts, working with a variety of musicians and engaging with the hosts to curate and market diverse programs. In 2019, she performed with Mark Steinberg, Nicholas Mann, and David Geber for the Robert Mann Celebration Concert at Manhattan School of Music [MSM]. Through her seven consecutive summers at the Meadowmount School of Music, she performed in multiple chamber groups as well as collaborated with legendary violinist Joseph Silverstein in benefit concerts at the Meadowmount School of Music.

 

Christine received a Professional Studies Certificate at the Manhattan School of Music as a student of Sylvia Rosenberg and Nicholas Mann. Previously she studied at The Juilliard School and Cleveland Institute of Music with Sylvia Rosenberg, Masao Kawasaki, and Jaime Laredo. She also holds a minor in Business Management from Case Western Reserve University. She began her studies at age three in Plano, Texas with Paul Landefeld and later continued under the tutelage of Jan Mark Sloman for ten years.