Chapel Hill Philharmonia
Bio information given is from the year of the winning performance.
Young Artist Concerto Competition winner Cissy Yu, age 15, is a freshman at East Chapel Hill High. She began playing piano at age 4 and now studies with UNC-CH Music Department faculty member Wonmin Kim. Her previous teachers included Tien Hsieh, Natsuki Fukawasa, and Richard Cionco. Cissy won top prizes in the US Open Music Competition in California in 2005, and recently attended the Schlern International Music Festival in Italy. She also excels academically and plays violin in her high school orchestra and in the Mallarmé Youth Chamber Orchestra.
Andrew Zhou, winner of the CHP’s annual student concerto competition, is 13 years old and a 7th grader at Ligon Middle School in Raleigh. A straight-A student, Andrew participates in Mathcounts and Science Olympiad. He studies piano with Dr. Margaret Evans at Meredith College and has won numerous awards at the city and district levels, a Junior Pianist scholarship from the Raleigh Music Club, and second place in the Peter Perret Youth Talent Search of the Winston-Salem Symphony. About the work he performs this evening, Andrew writes: “I think that throughout this inspired piano concerto, Edvard Grieg is painting a portrait of his beloved homeland. Grieg’s music describes Norway’s fresh cold air, running waters, and beautiful snow-capped mountains. The piano’s light trills and passagework represent the movement of frigid waters, while the grand chords represent the mountains and fjords. This concerto is also heavily influenced by Norwegian folklore, which involves elves, trolls, and dwarfs. We hear Norwegian folk tunes, or folk-inspired tunes. The music really makes me want to visit the country that Grieg is so proud of.”
Melissa Chan is a freshman at Enloe High School in Wake County. She has studied piano with Karen Ng, Brenda Bruce, and John Ruggero. Her current teacher is Mayron Tsong of the UNC-Chapel Hill Music Department faculty.
Melissa has earned numerous awards including first place prizes in the Hong Kong School Music Festival, and in local and NC state competitions, and won a scholarship from the Eastern Music Festival Summer Camp. She participated in the 2007 Franz Liszt Summer Piano Academy in Sopron, Hungary, and gave recitals in Sopron and Vienna, Austria. She has been accepted to the 2008 Schlern International Music Festival in Italy.
Melissa also excels in academics and enjoys drawing, painting, and photography. She recently organized and hosted a benefit concert by sixteen young artists as part of the Kids-helping-Kids Concert Series. She believes that music can touch people’s hearts and motivate them, and that children in hardship deserve warmth and hope.
William Clark is a senior at Durham School of the Arts. He has studied clarinet with Professor Donald Oehler since the 8th grade. William has attended the Interlochen Center for the Arts program in Interlochen, MI for the past three summers.
William is currently a member of the Triangle Youth Philharmonic and the Duke University String School Orchestra. Prior music accomplishments include:
- 1st chair, North Carolina All-State Orchestra, 2006
- 1st chair, North Carolina All-State Band, 2006
William is a National Merit Scholar Finalist and an AP Scholar. He will attend UNC Chapel Hill in the fall of 2007.
Sixteen year-old Audrey Ann Low, winner of the 2006 Chapel Hill Philharmonia Concerto Competition, lives in Chapel Hill and studies piano with John Ruggero in Raleigh. She began music studies in Vancouver Canada at age six and continued in the Pre-College program at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Audrey has performed widely in the local area, including solo appearances at the Eastern Music Festival and with the Durham Symphony, Raleigh Symphony, Raleigh Civic Symphony, Tar River Orchestra, Mallarme Youth Orchestra, Cary Academy Orchestra, and Winston-Salem Symphony. She was the North Carolina state winner of both junior and senior high school piano competitions of the Music Teachers National Association. Audrey also has founded an animal rescue and advocacy organization and trains therapy dogs. She plans to enroll at UNC-Chapel Hill in the fall.
Hae Rhee (Hattie) Chung began to play piano as a four year-old in Seoul, Korea. Now sixteen, she is a sophomore at East Chapel Hill High School. Hattie studies piano with John Ruggero. She attended the Eastern Music Festival in 2002 and 2003. Hattie has won a number of Music Teachers Association Competition awards and the Campbell University Piano Competition for high school students. In the past year she has performed with the Durham Symphony and the Raleigh Symphony as winner of their concerto competitions. Hattie also plays the violin and participated in the Eastern Regional All-State Orchestra.
Seventeen year-old Andrew Tyson, winner of the Chapel Hill Philharmonia’s 2004 Concerto Competition, is a junior at Durham Academy. He currently studies with Thomas Otten of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Music, and studied previously with Mary Turner and Barbara Davis. Andrew has won concerto competitions and performed with the Raleigh Symphony, the Durham Symphony, and the Guilford Symphony Orchestra at the Eastern Music Festival. He has presented solo recitals at Carolina Meadows and The Forest at Duke. Andrew is a long time member of the Duke University String School, where he has played in a variety of chamber music ensembles.