Young, hip and fearless, Di Wu tackles the works of century-old masters

She debuted with the Beijing Philharmonic at age 14, and has played with the National Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Orchestra and twice with New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. She has given recitals in the United States, Canada and China, has toured Germany, Italy and France, and has just released a live concert CD. Now, at the ripe old age of 23, rising star pianist Di Wu is coming to Cabrillo College for a solo transcription performance on March 8.

Born in Xiamen, China—a town on the mainland across the water from Taiwan—Wu took her first pecks at a keyboard at four years of age, after her parents gave her a piano for her birthday. Bearing the gifts of deft fingers and perfect pitch, Wu quickly developed her skills and, most importantly, a love for both the instrument and music. She played her first recital at age five and the next year she won her first piano competition. She moved to New York in 1995 and the next year began a five-year undergrad stint at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where pianist and teacher Gary Graffman served as a powerful force in her education.

She has since acquired a Master’s degree at The Juilliard School of Music under the training of Yoheved Kaplinsky and continued in the school’s Artist Diploma program with teachers Joseph Kalichstein and Robert McDonald. Meanwhile, she has forged an impressive live concert résumé; at Carnegie Hall, Wu has played in front of 3,000 spectators—the sort of large-scale performing environment which Wu calls “simply awesome.” She considers her experience at Carnegie, where she played on two consecutive nights in November of 2005, to be among the grand highlights of her still-dawning career. But the smaller shows, she says, allow her to foster some intimacy with the audience as she talks and jests with the crowd. In either setting, however, Wu dazzles music lovers as her fingers flicker across the keyboard, and she has received praise from critics around the globe.

Her Cabrillo College appearance marks the internationally recognized musician’s California debut. Wu will play before an audience of over 500 people, and her performance, entitled “The Art of Transcription,” will last for approximately 90 minutes as she plays several pieces from Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Liszt. Each piece has been transcribed from its original form explicitly for the piano, and these particular renditions are approached only by the surest of musicians.

“The pieces I’m doing are considered some of the most difficult transcriptions for piano ever written,” says Wu. “In their time, these pieces were such legends that composers in later generations felt compelled to honor them by adding to them, adding more notes and richer chords and more fireworks.”

According to John Orlando, concert series director and retired music instructor at Cabrillo College, he receives calls from pianists around the globe interested in performing at Cabrillo. “But I was particularly interested in Di Wu’s program,” he says, “which consists entirely of these transcriptions.”

Such landmarks of musical history as Bach’s “Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major,” several compositions by Schubert, and Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” will deliver familiar melodies and themes, but in forms that most listeners have never heard before.

“These are rarely performed transcriptions because they’re so taxing to the pianist,” says Orlando. “But Di Wu demonstrates that she has an amazing ability on these pieces. They’ve been transcribed with tremendous virtuosity in mind. Music comes from every corner of the keyboard, at all times, with arpeggios and dazzling runs up and down. It’s essentially pyrotechnics on piano and is about as entertaining as classical music gets.”

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