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Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts
Summer FREE Concert @ NEC 2026 夏日系列音樂會 at New England Conservatory, Boston, Massachusetts Aug 6 to 22, 2026 All concerts Admission Free, suggested donation $10 at door Age 6 and under not admitted |
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Mercury Orchestra
MERCURY ORCHESTRA WINS 2010 AMERICAN PRIZE COMPETITION
https://mercuryorchestra.org/
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,
conductor
http://channingyu.com/biography.html
American
orchestra and opera conductor Channing Yu is Music Director of the Mercury
Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the national winner of the 2010
American Prize in Orchestral Conducting in the community orchestra division.
He previously served as Music Director of the Dudley Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Music Director of Bay Colony Brass in Watertown, Massachusetts; Leader of the Powers Community String Orchestra in Belmont, Massachusetts; and Conductor of the Massachusetts Youth Symphony Project Preparatory String Orchestra in Belmont, Massachusetts. He was Associate Artistic Director of the Refugee Orchestra Project in New York City.
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.
He served as guest conductor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, in its production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s baroque opera Les arts florissants. He was guest conductor of Atrium Winds in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. He was also invited to guest conduct the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
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 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, Roberto Paternostro, Diane Wittry, Charles Peltz, and Frank Battisti. 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 Leigo Lakes Music Days Festival in Estonia. He worked with George Pehlivanian conducting L’Ensemble Orchestral de València in Spain, with Johannes Schlaefli conducting the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria, and with Sandro Gorli conducting the Divertimento Ensemble in Italy.
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 Anthony Tommasini of The Boston Globe for his "imaginative piano work." He studied piano with Hanna Li and Wha Kyung Byun; recent teachers include Matthew Odell, David Malusà, and Assaff Weisman. 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 the Greenwich Village Orchestra and as violinist in the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and Camerata Notturna, and currently performs as concertmaster or principal second violinist of the Chelsea Symphony in New York City. He was a founding member of the string quartet Quartetto Periodico, and he was first violinist in the Kitchen Quartet, which was featured as the Quartet in Residence at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a lyric baritone, he has performed recently with New Jersey Verismo Opera and previously with the Boston Opera Collaborative and in the Neil Semer Vocal Institute in Coesfeld and Aub, Germany. He has also sung with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Grammy award-winning chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops. He is a former faculty member of the Powers Music School in Belmont, Massachusetts.
Thank you for your
generous contribution to
Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts
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 中華表演藝術基金會Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts Lincoln, Massachusetts |