- On March 29th,
four Wisconsin high school students
will take the stage here at Overture Hall in Madison.
They're vying for top honors in the Madison Symphony Orchestra's
Bolz Young Artist Competition.
These young musicians are
violinist Yaoyao Chen,
harpist Naomi Sutherland,
pianist Michael Wu,
and violinist Julian Rhee.
You'll see them perform during our broadcast
Wisconsin Young Artists Compete The Final Forte
- But before you hear them play,
we thought you'd enjoy hearing them talk,
about themselves, their love of music...
- And what led them, ultimately, to this stage.
- My name's Julian Rhee.
I'm sixteen and I'm a junior at Brookfield East High School.
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Even though I don't love practicing,
I do find it relaxing sometimes,
just getting away from all the stress
and just thinking about how to make this piece musical.
And then, of course, the anticipation of a performance
kind of gets you going, it gets you excited.
The first time I really enjoyed performing
was when I was about 9 years old...
I performed with the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra,
and that was when I really realized
that I wanted to keep going with violin and perform.
The Wisconsin Intergenerational Orchestra
is a new orchestra formed a couple years ago.
It has members from all different ages.
I've been assisting and mentoring
a lot of the people who have been there
and trying to share my passion for music.
So it's been a fun experience meeting all new types of people,
from all different ages.
I'm playing basketball right now at my school,
not for the school team, but we have a league outside of school.
I'm playing with some school friends.
It's not too stressful.
It's just-- you come whenever you need to.
I've been studying at the Music Institute of Chicago
for several years now,
first with Hye-Sun Lee,
and more recently with Almita Vamos.
- I think I told you,
keep the 'A' going so there's no stop.
- So she's showed me how to shape the music,
how to approach the music, how to practice
making it better myself.
What I love most about the Tchaikovsky is
it's so exciting.
There's so many different characters to the piece.
You have like smooth floating
and then you have very intense, expressive parts,
and then you have technically very difficult passages,
where you can show off virtuosity...
It's got everything in it.
Whenever I'm playing in front of people,
it's a lot of fun
and I kind of forget about
all the other stuff that's going around me.
I'm just out there playing, being in the moment,
making the most beautiful music that I can make.
And just having a good time.
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