Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts Presents: Mercury Orchestra; Channing Yu conductor

Artist(s)

Mercury Orchestra: https://mercuryorchestra.org/

The Mercury Orchestra was the national winner of the 2010 American Prize in Orchestral Performance, community orchestra division, in a competition including orchestras from 26 states and the District of Columbia.

The 97-member Mercury Orchestra, directed by conductor Channing Yu, brings together some of the most talented amateur musicians in the Cambridge/Boston area to perform some of the most challenging works in the symphonic repertoire.

Channing Yu, conductor: https://mercuryorchestra.org/yu.html

Channing Yu is Music Director of the Mercury Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is national winner of the 2010 American Prize in Orchestral Conducting in the community orchestra division.

He has also served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Lowell House Opera, the oldest opera company in New England, where he conducted over thirty fully staged performances with orchestra. For his musical direction of Tosca, he was awarded second prize in the 2011 American Prize in Opera Conducting national competition.

He began formal study of conducting at Harvard University with James Yannatos; there he served as assistant conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and conductor of the Toscanini Chamber Orchestra.
Originally trained as a pianist, he was a winner of the American Music Scholarship Association International Piano Competition and has appeared as piano soloist with numerous orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He has been praised by The Boston Globe for his "imaginative piano work."

As a violinist, he has served as concertmaster of the Brahms Society Orchestra and as violinist in the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. As a lyric baritone, he has performed with the Boston Opera Collaborative. He also sings with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Grammy award-winning chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops.