Music Speaks Classical Concert and Reception: Audrey Wright and Yundu Wang

When: August 10, 2023 at 5:30

Where: Mural Barn of the Atwood Museum

347 Stage Harbor Rd., Chatham, MA 02633

The Atwood Museum welcomes violinist Audrey Wright and pianist Yundu Wang to our Music Speaks Benefit Bash Classical Concert and Reception!

Violinist Audrey Wright and pianist Yundu Wang return to the Atwood Museum for the first night of their special two day concert series raising money for education programs at the Atwood Museum. On night one, Wright (of the New York Philharmonic) and Wang (an award-winning Boston-based pianist) will wow us with a concert of classical music. 

Doors open at 5:00 PM, performance begins at 5:30.

Concessions, including beer, white wine, and a selection of non-alcoholic beverages, will be sold at the Museum. There will be a limit of two alcoholic beverages per attendee.

All tickets are general admission and seats will not be assigned. If you have any accessibility questions or concerns, please reach out to us at (508) 945-2493 or by email at atwoodreservations@gmail.com

About Audrey Wright:

Audrey Wright is a multifaceted artist across solo, chamber music, and orchestral realms. She joined the New York Philharmonic in 2022 and has been the concertmaster of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra since 2018. She previously served as associate concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Wright has performed across the globe in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, and the Vatican, and has been a soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, and Cape Symphony Orchestra. With a passion for innovative programming and juxtaposing a wide range of musical styles, her repertoire spans the early 17th century to the modern day, and her performing experience includes the full spectrum of these musical styles, from period performance practice to the premiering of new and personally commissioned works. Her debut album, Things In Pairs, with pianist Yundu Wang, was released on Navona Records in 2022.

Originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Wright developed a love of ensemble and collaborative playing from a young age. During her high school years, she went on several international tours with youth orchestras in the Boston area, attended the prestigious Walnut Hill School of Performing Arts, and was on the national radio program From the Top. As a recurring participant in the Verbier Festival since 2012, she has performed with the Verbier Festival Orchestra and Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, and has been concertmaster under the direction of Gábor Takács-Nagy, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano, Iván Fischer, and Charles Dutoit. Wright was a Violin Fellow in the New World Symphony from 2013–14, and a member of the Excelsa Quartet from 2014–16. As the Fellowship String Quartet at the University of Maryland, Excelsa Quartet performed and competed internationally, working closely with members of the Guarneri, Emerson, St. Lawrence, and Juilliard quartets.

Wright has performed on such chamber music series as Meeting House Chamber Music, Jackson Hole Chamber Music, Manchester Summer Chamber Music, Great Lakes Summer Chamber Music Festival, and in many concerts in the mid-Atlantic area, including Chiarina Chamber Players, Community Concerts at Second, Pro Musica Rara, Hood College Chamber Music, and the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, where she has performed on a number of the exquisite instruments in the Smithsonian Instrument Collection. She has worked closely with musicians Mayron Tsong, Paul Watkins, Roberto González-Monjas, Russell Hartenberger, Roger Tapping, John Heiss, John Gibbons, and Yundu Wang, as well as chamber ensembles such as the Axelrod String Quartet, Borromeo String Quartet, Boston Trio, and NuDeco Ensemble. Having worked extensively with artists across other disciplines, she also regularly collaborates with multidisciplinary artist and husband Geoff Robertson on innovative projects that often incorporate dazzling displays of light and sound.

In addition to performing, Wright is a passionate teacher and chamber music coach, and has developed a specialty in coaching and giving masterclasses on orchestral audition excerpts. In 2020 she released a YouTube series of excerpt tutorial videos that has become a widely used resource for musicians worldwide. She was the Director of the Homewood Chamber Music Seminar at Johns Hopkins University from 2017–18, has coached chamber music at the University of Maryland, and maintains a small studio of private students. 

Wright holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and a doctoral degree from the University of Maryland. Her primary teachers have included David Salness, Lucy Chapman, Bayla Keyes, and Magdalena Richter. She plays on a 1753 J.B. Guadagnini violin generously on loan from the Alsop Trust.

About Yundu Wang:

Yundu Wang is a Chinese-American classical pianist currently based in Boston, MA. An established soloist, collaborative pianist, and chamber musician, Yundu has performed widely throughout the U.K., U.S., and Europe. Her deep interest in communication in both music and language led her to pursue doctoral research on the relationship between musical expression and speech prosody in London, U.K. Now returned to the U.S., Yundu is committed to sharing her research and intercultural experiences through teaching, collaborating, and performing.  

An avid chamber musician and collaborator, Yundu has toured throughout the U.K., Germany, and Belgium in piano trios, piano quartets, and duo projects with violin. While on her U.K. tour with violinist Savitri Grier, Yundu gave a masterclass as a guest artist at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. Her most recent collaborations include an augmented reality concert with Christine Lamprea (Longy School of Music of Bard College) and a debut album with Audrey Wright (Associate Concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra), set to be released in early 2022.

Yundu has been invited to numerous festivals and courses, including the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, the Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, Jeunesses Musicale Deutschland, and the Holland Music Sessions. She has worked and collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Paul Katz, Roger Tapping, Peter Frankl, and the Weilerstein Trio. Yundu has also played in solo masterclasses for esteemed pianists such as Richard Goode, Jonathan Biss, Imogen Cooper, Boris Berman, and Jean-Bernard Pommier.

?Yundu has been awarded prizes at the Honours Competition at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Seiler International Piano Competition, the Julia Crane International Piano Competition, the Cincinnati World Piano Competition, and the Gavrilin International Piano Competition. She received the Glass Sellers’ Beethoven Prize for her performance of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, op. 111. 

 Beyond performance, Yundu has presented her interdisciplinary research at the 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody in Poznan, Poland. She is also interested in identity as a performer and conducted an autoethnographic examination of musical expression, East Asian identity, and the performer’s voice in Western classical music. Her research collaboration with Dr. Biranda Ford (Guildhall School of Music & Drama) was presented at the Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks seminar series.

 Yundu received a Doctor of Music at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, supervised by Ronan O’Hora, Dr. Elinor Payne of the University of Oxford, Martin Roscoe, and Dr. Cormac Newark. She also earned a Master of Performance with Distinction in Piano and Collaborative Piano at the Guildhall School. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees with Honors from the New England Conservatory of Music, studying with Vivian Weilerstein and Hung-Kuan Chen.