Keila Wakao, violinist

"Her performance was an unmitigated artistic triumph."​​ - The Straits Times 2025
"Wakao wowed us with perfect intonation and a crystalline sound."​​ - The Boston Music Intelligencer 2024

Keila Wakao made her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut for the BSO’s Opening Night Gala concert in September 2024 under Andris Nelsons, in a concert also featuring world-renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and pianists Lang Lang and Gina Alice Redlinger.

Keila Wakao won First Prize in the 2021 Menuhin International Violin Competition Junior Division and the composer award for outstanding performance of a commissioned work, and was also awarded the Gold Medal and Bach Prize at the 2021 Stulberg International String Competition. In 2023, she was awarded the Aoyama Music Foundation Award in Japan for upcoming artists. She also won 1st prize in the Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, where she performed alongside the BSO and Thomas Wilkins in the BSO Family Concert in October 2023, and is a recipient of Charlotte White's Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant in New York. In 2024, she was awarded the Next Generation Distinguished Cultural Achievement Award from the Japan Society of Boston, and was also featured on CBS Boston’s television news. ​

Born in 2006, Keila Wakao is from Chestnut Hill, MA, and began playing the violin at age 3. Former BSO concertmaster Joseph Silverstein accepted her as a student when she was 6 years old. From age 9, she studied with Donald Weilerstein. She worked with Itzhak Perlman and participated in the Perlman Music Program in summers 2018-2022. Currently, Keila is an undergraduate student of Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory as a Starling Foundation Full Scholarship recipient.

Named a “VC Artist” by Violin Channel, Keila Wakao has performed as soloist and in recital throughout the United States, Japan, Germany, Singapore, and the United Kingdom in venues such as Cadogan Hall (London), Victoria Concert Hall (Singapore), Jordan Hall (Boston), and Carnegie Weill Recital Hall (New York City). She made her solo debut with an orchestra at age 9 and has since performed with ensembles including the Boston, Tokyo Phil, Baden-Baden, Richmond, Eugene, Chattanooga, Adelphi, Kalamazoo, Resound Collective, and Reading symphony orchestras and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. In 2017, Keila was invited to speak and perform at TEDxBoston.

Keila plays on the Cremona 1690 “Theodor” Stradivarius violin on loan from the Ryuji Ueno Foundation and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative. ​    https://www.keilawakao.com/


Dina Vainshtein, pianist
 
Pianist Dina Vainshtein collaborates with some of the most promising musicians of our time. Now based in Boston, she is the daughter of two pianists, and studied with Boris Berlin and Arthur Aksenov at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music in Moscow. At the 1998 International Tchaikovsky Competition, she received the Special Prize for the Best Collaborative Pianist.

She came to the United States in 2000 to attend the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she worked with Vivian Hornik Weilerstein and Donald Weilerstein. She soon found numerous performing opportunities in the US, from Alice Tully Hall and Weill is Recital Hall in New York City, to the Caramoor Festival, Music at Menlo, the Ravinia Festival, the Music Academy in the West at Santa Barbara, not to mention tours of Japan, China, Europe, and Russia.

Bob McQuiston reviewed the recent Naxos release of Emile Sauret’s violin showpieces featuring Michi Wianko and Vainshtein: "She couldn’t have a better partner than Ms. Vainshtein, who plays the perfect supporting role in these fiddle-dominated pieces. More specifically, she exercises a perfect balancing act between artistic reserve during bravura violin passages as opposed to compelling dramatic assertiveness when the piano is spotlighted." Vainshtein made another acclaimed Naxos recital disc with Frank Huang, the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic.

For nearly a decade, Vainshtein has been affiliated with the New England Conservatory. For many years she worked with Benjamin Zander in his renowned interpretation and classes. Maestro Zander praised their collaboration as "the perfect partnership; [she is] the ultimate professional."