Praised in The Wall Street Journal as “a most mature and sensitive pianist’, Chinese-born *Di Wu* continues to enhance her enviable reputation as an elegant yet ex citing musician. Highlights of her past season featured debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra; at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival; at the Cincinnati May Festival; in Germany, with the Hamburg Philharmonic; and in Tokyo, where she appeared as a soloist with orchestra in front of an audience of 11,000.
Ms. Wu has also been welcomed as a recitalist: In Washington, she was hailed for her “fire and authority” (Post); in Philadelphia, for her “charisma, steely technique and keen musical intelligence” (Inquirer). And in California, where the Bay Area’s Peninsula Review critic declared, “I would gladly crawl over broken glass to hear her again,” she will play her first San Francisco recital during the 2010-2011 season.
Another significant event on Ms. Wu’s current itinerary, which once again comprises numerous debuts and re-engagements, is a return to Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall as soloist, under the baton of Christopher Eschenbach, in the famed but rarely-performed (and entire-concert-length) Turangalîla-Symphonie of Messaien.
Ms. Wu’s recent recording of Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Books I and II received praise from Musical America’s Harris Goldsmith, who wrote, “Her account of the Brahms is amazing. She takes all the difficult options (her glissandos are unbelievable!), and she conjures from the piano absolutely gossamer, violinistic textures, joyous humor, and brilliant air-borne tempos.”
Winner of multiple awards, including, in 2009 alone, a coveted prize at the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; The Juilliard School’s Petschek Award; and the Vendome Virtuosi prize at Lisbon’s prestigious Vendome Competition, Ms. Wu began her professional career as soloist with the Beijing Philharmonic at the age 0f 14 and since then has toured widely in Asia and Europe. She came to United States in 1999 to study at the Manhattan School of Music with Zenon Fishbein. From 2000 to 2005 she studied at The Curtis Institute with Gary Graffman, subsequently earning a Master of Music degree at Juilliard under Yoheved Kaplinsky and an Artist Diploma under the guidance of Joseph Kalichstein and Robert McDonald.
