Formosa Duo

Since earning their respective doctorate of musical arts degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC), pianist Chi-Chen Wu and cellist Sam Ou have been collaborating as the Formosa Duo for over two decades. While respectively maintaining music faculty positions at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and NEC’s Preparatory School & School of Continuing Education, Ms. Wu and Mr. Ou have individually appeared as recitalists, chamber musicians, and concerto soloists in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Poland, and Bermuda. Music festivals in which they have collectively participated include Aspen, Tanglewood, Sarasota, Musicorda, Santa Fe, La Jolla, and Monadnock.

As a duo, Ms. Wu and Mr. Ou studied with Irma Vallecillo and Laurence Lesser at NEC. The diverse repertoire that they have performed encompasses a wide stylistic span, from the Classical and Romantic periods, through the 20th century and into the present. This includes works by Barber, Beethoven, Boccherini, Bolcom, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, de Falla, Dohnanyi, Fauré, Grieg, Tyzen Hsiao, John Kramer, Martinu, Mendelssohn, Jessie Montgomery, Muczynski, Arvo Pärt, Piazzolla, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns, Schubert, Schumann, Cyril Scott, Shostakovich, Reza Vali, and Kurt Weill. Particularly, contemporary music is a passion for both musicians. Ms. Wu has premiered the piano version of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby, The Poet and The War by Norber Palej (world premiere), and Ralf Gawlick’s Best Regards, Bruno (world premiere). Notable contemporary music performances include Concertino for Piano, Winds and Timpani by George Perle and Malcolm Williamson’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Mr. Ou has performed Yehudi Wyner's Tanz and Maissele with violinist Lucy Chapman and the Pulitzer prize-winning composer at the piano in New York City. He has also performed works by Ralph Shapey, Scott Wheeler, Lee Hyla, and Larry Bell in Boston’s Jordan Hall. He soloed with the Boston Civic Symphony in the world premiere performance of Mr. Bell’s Cello Concerto. As the Formosa Duo, Ms. Wu and Mr. Ou performed the world premiere of John Kramer's Sonata for Piano and Cello. They also performed Jessie Montgomery’s Peace transcribed for cello and piano. During the pandemic, the Duo maintained fervent support of contemporary music and collaborated with student composers from the University of Florida, culminating in a final recording project of their compositions, all recorded and edited remotely.

Emerging from the pandemic, the Duo has performed in Wyoming, Colorado, and Massachusetts, with several upcoming concerts in the Boston area this year.

Sam Ou 歐維聖, cello

Praised for his "impassioned performance" (The Boston Globe) and playing "with remarkable ease and clarity, while maintaining a graceful—if vociferous—line that fit well into the narrative" (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), cellist Sam Ou enjoys an active musical life in the Greater Boston area. A recipient of the Rosemary Scales Prize for best cello concerto performance at the Kingsville International Young Performers Competition, Mr. Ou has performed at several prestigious summer venues including Tanglewood, Sarasota, Musicorda, Santa Fe, and La Jolla music festivals. In 2012, he gave the world premiere performance of Larry Bell’s Cello Concerto entitled The Triumph of Lightness with the Boston Civic Symphony at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall (NEC). An avid chamber musician, Mr. Ou has collaborated and performed with the Borromeo String Quartet, James Buswell, Hung-Kuan Chen, Pi-Hsien Chen, James Dunham, Thomas Hill, Patricia McCarty, Paul Neubauer, Heiichiro Ohyama, Lois Shapiro, and Marcus Thompson. He performed Yehudi Wyner's Tanz and Maissele with violinist Lucy Chapman, clarinetist Bruce Creditor, and the Pulitzer prize-winning composer at the piano at The Center for Jewish History in New York. As one-half of the Formosa Duo, he performs regularly with pianist Chi-Chen Wu. Also as one-half of the Ou Cello Duo, Mr. Ou collaborates frequently with his sister, cellist Carol Ou. Symphonically, Mr. Ou has played in the Boston Pops, Boston Landmarks, Boston Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera, and Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestras.
Mr. Ou came to the United States from Taiwan at age 4 and began his cello studies at age 9. He has been a pupil of several renowned cello teachers, including Gretchen Geber, Eleonore Schoenfeld, and Aldo Parisot. After completing his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Music degrees in New York from Columbia University and The Juilliard School in their double degree program, Mr. Ou moved to Boston to study with Laurence Lesser at NEC, where he graduated with a Doctorate of Musical Arts. His dissertation was entitled "In Felix's Footsteps: An Examination of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's Approach to Her Chamber Music."

While a student at NEC, Mr. Ou founded the NEC String Trio, which won the NEC Honors Ensemble Competition, was featured on Boston’s WGBH radio station, and was the resident chamber ensemble at the Musicorda Music Festival. As a former member of the Huntington Piano Trio, he performed extensively throughout New England and traveled to Poland, giving concerts in Poznan and Zakopane. He has studied with several inspiring chamber music coaches including Toby Appel, Emanuel Ax, Neil Black, James Buswell, Earl Carlyss, Lucy Chapman, Norman Fischer, Felix Galimir, Christoph Henkel, Lewis Kaplan, and Emma Tahmisian.

In addition to being a prize recipient at the Kingsville International Young Performers Competition, Mr. Ou has also been awarded the Rome Festival Concerto Soloist Award, the Chi-Mei Music Scholarship from Taiwan, the ARTS Level II Award from the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts, and the Joseph Schuster Memorial Cello Scholarship from the Young Musicians' Foundation.
Mr. Ou has been a visiting lecturer, performer, and cello teacher at Fu-Jen University in Taiwan, where he conducted solo and chamber music masterclasses and performed with Fu-Jen faculty musicians. As a participant of Fu-Jen’s 18th Century Piano Literature Symposium and the International Strings Literature Symposium, he presented papers on the chamber music of Beethoven and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. Mr. Ou has also coached undergraduate chamber ensembles and orchestral cello sectionals at Tufts University. In 2016, he was invited to México City to conduct masterclasses and give a solo recital at the National University of México's School of Music as part of the School's "5th National Cello Encounter" Conference. In summer 2018, he gave a recital at the Sejong Cultural Arts Center and taught a cello masterclass at Sejong University in Seoul, Korea.

Mr. Ou has just been appointed as the new assistant professor of cello and music theory at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. For the past two decades, he was a faculty member at NEC's Preparatory School and School of Continuing Education, and he also served as assistant string chair at the Prep School. Additionally, Mr. Ou has coached chamber music and maintained a private teaching studio. In the summer, he has taught at the Kutztown University Summer Music Festival in Pennsylvania, Music on the Hill in Belmont, MA, the Vianden International Music Festival in Luxembourg, the Walnut Hill Music Festival in Natick, MA, and Point Counterpoint in Leicester, VT. Mr. Ou released a CD entitled With String & Pipe, in which he collaborated with the late organist Harry Lyn Huff. He was also featured in Larry Bell’s CDs entitled In a Garden of Dreamers, where he collaborated with recorder player Aldo Abreu and harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa. For more information, please visit his website at samweiou.weebly.com.

Chi-Chen Wu 吳紀禛, piano

As a musician active in performing, recording, teaching and research, Dr. Chi-Chen Wu is equally at home in the worlds of contemporary and classical music as well as historical performance practice.

Recently making her Carnegie Hall debut with the Helios trio, Wu has appeared as recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg, Japan, Taiwan, China, Thailand, among others. She has performed at numerous festivals including Aspen, Monadnock, and the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe Concert Series. Her live performances have been broadcast on NPR’s live performance programs Simply Grand Concert Series, From The Top, and many others.

Chi-Chen’s musical collaborations include performances with Augustin Hadelich, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Jonathan McPhee, Zuill Bailey, Guy Johnston, members of the Juilliard String Quartet, Takács String Quartet, and musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

A native of Taiwan and prize winner of several Taiwanese national piano competitions, Wu came to the United States for graduate study at New England Conservatory of Music where she received two master’s degrees, (piano performance and collaborative piano) as well as a doctorate. Upon her graduation, with Distinction in Performance and Academic Honors, she was appointed Assistant Professor at National Taiwan Normal University.

In 2007, Dr. Wu accepted a position of visiting scholar at Cornell University, where she taught piano, studied fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson, and conducted research on historical performance practice with Neal Zaslaw. As part of her research activities, in the summer of 2012 she presented a paper on Schumann’s metronome markings at the World Piano Conference in Serbia. This paper received “Diploma of Excellence” from the World Piano Teachers Association, the highest accolade of this organization. Her paper “Pianist as Portrayer of Imagery in ‘En Sourdine’ by Fauré and Debussy” was published as the featured article in the Journal of Singing.

As an interpreter of contemporary music, Chi-Chen Wu was the pianist of Aggregate, a Boston-based composer group. She premiered the piano version of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby at Jordan Hall, The Poet and the War by Norber Palej, and Ralf Gawlick’s Herzliche Grüße Bruno, a one-hour electro-acoustic composition. Recent notable contemporary music performances include Piano Concertino by George Perle and Malcolm Williamson’s Concerto No. 2 as soloist with Pacifica Chamber Orchestra in Seattle.

Chi-Chen’s album of Schumann Fantasie and Carnaval on a Graf fortepiano won an award for Best Classical Album in the Global Music Awards. Her recording of Schumann’s complete sonatas for piano and violin also on a Graf fortepiano received two gold medals from the same competition. American Record Guide selected it as one of the top recordings of this repertoire and recommends its readers to “Stick with Kremer and Argerich or DiEugenio and Wu.” It was also named in the Top 10 "Best Classical Recordings of 2015" by The Big City, New York. Her recital and discussion with Malcolm Bilson on piano collaboration are featured on his DVD “Performing the Score'' released in 2011.

Some highlights of her recent professional activities include a recital with Augustin Hadelich, performances as soloist in Wölfl’s Piano Concerto No. 1 as well as Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, and a concert at the Nuremberg Symphony Hall in Germany. In Fall 2021, Chi-Chen was invited by the composition department of the University of Florida to conduct a residency, where she worked with their composers and recorded 6 pieces written for her duo with cellist Sam Ou. Recently, she started a 5-year project of commissioning and recording new works by BIPOC woman composers. She is also recording a piece by Chris Shelton for piano and interactive software. In addition to working on contemporary compositions, she and violinist John Fadial recently finished recording the complete duo works by Gabriel Fauré on an 1865 Pleyel in collaboration with Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards.

In the fall of 2023, Dr. Wu joined the faculty at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, School of Music as Associate Professor of Piano and Keyboard Area Chair. Previously, she served as Associate Professor of Piano and Collaborative Piano Coordinator at the University of Wyoming. Her students have been prizewinners in international competitions and have been accepted for graduate study to the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, McGill University, Conservatoire de Paris and other such institutions.