- 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. 
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- My name is Michael Wu. I'm in ninth grade and I go to Cardinal Heights Upper Middle School in Sun Prairie. I started playing the piano when I was six. My grandfather was my first so-called teacher. We always listened to the church bells outside. We live near a church. And there's this classic West minister chimes theme that he wrote down on a sheet music by ear and he just taught me note by note.

My teacher is Bill Lutz. I started with him in 2014. I don't think I've ever met a teacher with such good jokes, you know.

- I know I'm old and everything, but I just like, I like being able to hear everything.

- I guess I'm just grateful for him too because he's encouraged me to work on so much new repertoire, so many new concepts, introduced me to so many new things.

I am in Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras. I play the clarinet in the Philharmonia Orchestra. 
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 I choose the clarinet because it very much involves finger work, as does the piano.

As I've developed my sound and my tone, and my technique, articulation, all those things. I've really come to enjoy, you know, the sound of the clarinet more and more. Playing literature written for the clarinet. I teach kids around the community for fun. We work on scales, we work on theory, I feel it's not only good for them, in which they're learning new stuff, but it's also really good for me, as, you know, a mentor. Because I learn, too.

I'll be playing the "Saint-Saëns Concerto No. 2 in G minor: first movement." It's got so much stuff jammed into it and it's so fun to play. For example there's cadenzas, there's octaves, there's fast passages, slow passages, lyrical passages. It's an atmosphere, the atmosphere that you have to create.

I've performed with Madison Symphony before. There's always a sense of adrenaline that comes in when you walk on stage and you shake the conductor's hand. Everyone is clapping. It's been my dream to perform as part of this competition and now I'll be able to. 
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