• Program
• About the Artists
  • Ariel Horowitz
  • Christine Wu

Program

Full Program (PDF)

About the Artists

Ariel Horowitz

HAILED BY THE WASHINGTON POST AS “SWEETLY LYRICAL,” Ariel Horowitz cannot remember life before loving music. A student of Ani Kavafian at the Yale School of Music, Ariel previously studied with Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho at The Juilliard School as an Arnold R. Deutsch/Dorothy DeLay Scholarship recipient. Prizewinner of the Stulberg, Klein and Grumiaux, Juilliard, and Yale concerto and chamber music competitions, Ariel received the Salon De Virtuosi Career Grant in 2017. As founding director of The Heartbeat Project music education initiative on the Navajo Reservation, Ariel received “From The Top” Alumni Leadership Grants (2017-18) and the 2017 McGraw Hill-Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach.

Violinist, composer, and activist, Ariel Horowitz enjoys an active performance schedule, frequently pairing masterworks of the classical canon in dialogue with her political and interdisciplinary compositions. Her Juilliard School senior recital featured the premiere of her multimedia composition, Woman, (dance, voice, violin and electronics). The Violin Channel praised Ariel’s artistic energy: “If they gave out prizes for attitude…we think we may have found the Olympic champion.” In 2017, she was Yale Philharmonia Concertmaster and soloist for Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben. She performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Strathmore Music Center and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall as well as with the Neue Philharmonie Westphalia, Raanana Symphonette, Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra, Carmel Symphony Orchestra, Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, New Albany Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, and the Doctor’s Orchestral Society of New York as well as numerous recitals in the United States, Italy, France, Israel, Brazil, Belgium, Ukraine, and Argentina. She was a featured soloist at the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict in 2018. She enjoys cross-cultural/genre performances with Indian, Iraqi, and Navajo musicians and collaborates with Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely as well as Laura Love and Linda Tillery. In 2016, The Klein Competition featured Ariel on a concert tour of California, Oregon, New York and Washington, DC. She was distinguished as a semifinalist in the 2016 Menuhin Competition in London and featured on NPR’s From The Top Annual Gala in 2014. At the 2012 Menuhin Competition in Beijing, China Ariel performed an improvisational solo during the Final Gala Concert and received the Morningside Music Bridge Young Artist Award.

Ariel has attended The Perlman Music Program, Mozarteum Salzburg, Keshet Eilon International Master Course, Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, and Orford Music Centre among other festivals. A devoted chamber musician, Ariel has received guidance from many musicians including Ivry Gitlin, Joseph Lin, Daniel Phillips, David Finckel, Roger Tapping, Li Lin, Sarah Kapustin, Merry Peckham, and former teachers Mimi Zweig and Mauricio Fuks. Ariel performed as an orchestra player under the baton of the late David Zinman at Carnegie Hall and Maestro Itzhak Perlman at both David Geffen Hall and Harris Theater in Chicago.

Christine Wu

AN AWARD-WINNING AMERICAN PIANIST, Christine Wu has performed in the U.S., France, Germany, and Italy. She received top prizes in the Ettore Pozzoli International Piano Competition, the Chautauqua Institute Piano Competition, Fite Family Competition, and awards from the Seattle International Piano Competition, Washington International Piano Competition and the American International Paderewski Piano Competition. She performs regularly with her duo partner, violist Andrew Gonzalez.

Ms. Wu has been a featured soloist with orchestras including the Dearborn Symphony Orchestra and Rochester Symphony Orchestra of Michigan. In January of 2011, she was invited to perform in the Liszt Festival at Juilliard, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Liszt’s birth. She performs frequently in solo and chamber recitals in Lincoln Center and various other concert series in and around New York. She has participated in several international music festivals, including the Music Academy of the West (2013) where she received a full tuition fellowship, the Aspen Music Festival (2012), the Bowdoin International Music Festival (2011), and the International Institute of Young Musicians (2009). She has worked with several noteworthy artists including Richard Goode, Menahem Pressler, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Yong-Hi Moon, Matti Raekallio, Jerome Lowenthal, and Jeremy Denk.

Christine Wu studied at the Juillard School in New York City from 2011 to 2016, earning both the Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. Her teachers at Juillard included Hung-Kuan Chen, Choong-Mo Kang, Julian Martin, and Logan Skelton. She is currently a student in the Doctor of Musical Arts program at the Yale School of Music.