Zhiye Lin,
林之燁, China
Pianist
Zhiye Lin, a native of Shantou, Canton Province, China, began playing
piano at age seven. In 2011, he won the excellent performance prize in the
concerto competition held in the Middle School affiliated in Shanghai
Conservatory of Music and the first prize of V Category in the Third Piano
Competition of NIHON Piano Association in Tokyo, Japan. He also was the
recipient of the 2nd prize of 2014 Spain 2nd Concurso Internatcional de
Piano"Villa de Xabia", the Melvin Stecher And Norman Horowitz Second Prize
of One-Piano, Four Hands Ensemble in 2016 8th New York International Piano
Competition, the 1st prize of 2018 High Point University Piano Competition
in North Carolina and the 1st prize of 2019 West Virginia International
Piano Competition.
He has performed at The Kennedy Center, Shanghai Oriental Art Center, He
Lvding Hall, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall and Ningbo Concert Hall, and
he received Ende Niu Piano Major Scholarship (2009), the People
Scholarship of Shanghai Music Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai
Conservatory Of Music (2010-2015), and YAMAHA Music Scholarship (2016). In
2007, he began his studies at the middle school affiliated to Shanghai
Conservatory of Music with Ting Zhou. He earned his bachelor degree at the
Cleveland Institute of Music under the guidance of Haesun Paik and is
currently pursuing his Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School
under the guidance of Hung-Kuan Chen.
(2019)
Mercury Orchestra
MERCURY ORCHESTRA
WINS 2010 AMERICAN PRIZE COMPETITION
www.mercuryorchestra.org
(CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—June 18, 2010) The Mercury Orchestra has been selected
as the national winner of the 2010 American Prize in Orchestral
Performance, community orchestra division, in a competition including
orchestras from 26 states and the District of Columbia.
The American Prize is a series of new non-profit national competitions
designed to recognize and reward the very best in the performing arts in
the United States. Founded in 2009, the American Prize rewards the best
recorded performances of music by individuals and ensembles in the
United States at the professional, community/amateur,
college/university, church and school levels.
The 97-member Mercury Orchestra, directed by the young American
conductor Channing Yu, brings together some of the most talented amateur
musicians in the Cambridge/Boston area to perform some of the most
challenging works in the symphonic repertoire. Now in its third season,
the orchestra will perform two highly colorful and evocative
works—Stravinsky’s Petrushka (1911) and Berlioz’s Symphonie
fantastique—on July 17 in Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In their evaluations, the competition judges praised the orchestra’s
"excellent interpretations" and made special mention of the orchestra’s
"thrilling rendition of the Rondo-Finale from the Mahler Symphony No.
5," taken from a live recording of the orchestra’s performance in July
2009. "What an incredible honor for the Mercury Orchestra," says Maestro
Yu, who is also a finalist in the 2010 American Prize for Conducting
competition. "The musicians in our orchestra are some of the most
dedicated, serious, and expressive artists I have ever worked with, and
it is a thrill to make music together."
The Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra of West Windsor, N.J., took second
prize, and the Auburn University/Community Orchestra of Auburn, Ala.,
won third prize. The judges’ decision was announced on June 18, 2010, on
the American Prize website, where the three orchestras were
congratulated "for their outstanding achievement, ranked among the
finest community orchestras in the country."
Justin Albstein, Mercury Orchestra’s general manager, says, "it’s
wonderful that our orchestra has received this recognition in only its
second year. The musicians deserve tremendous credit for taking on some
of the most challenging pieces in the repertoire and succeeding
brilliantly."
Adds Brian Van Sickle, principal flutist: "This is really an honor to
receive such recognition. What I love most about playing in this
orchestra is how sensitively all of the players work together and listen
to one another. It’s a thrill to be a part of it all."
Channing Yu
music director and conductor
American
orchestra and opera conductor Channing Yu is Music Director of the
Mercury Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Music Director of Bay
Colony Brass in Watertown, Massachusetts. He is national winner of the
2010 American Prize in Orchestral Conducting in the community orchestra
division.
He has also served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Lowell
House Opera, the oldest opera company in New England, where he conducted
over thirty fully staged performances with orchestra, including
Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier,
Puccini’s Turandot, Verdi’s Otello, and Puccini’s Tosca. For his musical
direction of Tosca, he was awarded second prize in the 2011 American
Prize in Opera Conducting national competition.
His 2013–14 invitational engagements include conducting the Fall River
Symphony Orchestra (Fall River, MA) and Berlin Sinfonietta (Berlin,
Germany), and adjudicating for the James Pappoutsakis Memorial Flute
Competition, the Brookline Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, and
the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts Concerto Competition.
Of the Lowell House Opera’s performance of Otello, The Harvard Crimson
wrote, "The production’s hero was the orchestra, under the keen
direction of Channing Yu. Yu was able to channel all the energy of the
80-member ensemble into moments that spanned the entire emotional
spectrum—from sheer joy to complete misery. The sound produced by the
orchestra was stylish, heartfelt, and on the whole, refined." The Boston
Musical Intelligencer noted, "The real star of the performance was the
orchestra, led with great skill by Channing Yu."
He served as guest conductor at the University of North Carolina,
Charlotte, in its 2008 production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s baroque
opera Les arts florissants. He guest conducted the Westmoreland Symphony
Orchestra in 2008 and 2009. He was invited as one of fourteen conductors
worldwide to work with conductors Neeme Järvi, Leonid Grin, and Paavo
Järvi in master classes at the 2009 Leigo Lakes Music Days Festival in
Estonia. In 2010, he worked with George Pehlivanian and L’Ensemble
Orchestral de València in Spain. In 2013 he worked with Johannes
Schlaefli and conducted the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria.
He began formal study of conducting at Harvard University with James
Yannatos; there he served as assistant conductor of the
Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and conductor of the Toscanini Chamber
Orchestra. Since then, he has worked with a number of conductor teachers
in the master class setting, including Kenneth Kiesler, Diane Wittry,
Charles Peltz, and Frank Battisti.
Channing Yu grew up in Pennsylvania. Originally trained as a pianist, he
was a divisional grand prize winner of the American Music Scholarship
Association International Piano Competition, and he has appeared as
piano soloist with numerous orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra, Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic
Orchestra, and Orchèstra Nova. He has been praised by The Boston Globe
for his "imaginative piano work." He performs with the chamber ensemble
sul ponticello, in Cambridge, MA. As a violinist, he has served as
concertmaster of the Brahms Society Orchestra and as violinist in the
Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. He was a founding member of the string
quartet Quartetto Periodico. As a lyric baritone, he has performed with
the Boston Opera Collaborative, in the Richard Crittenden Opera Workshop
in Boston, and in the Neil Semer Vocal Institute in Coesfeld and Aub,
Germany. He also sings with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Grammy
award-winning chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston
Pops. He is a member of the faculty of the Powers Music School in
Belmont, Massachusetts. Channing Yu lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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