Music for the Soul
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November 9, 2024
7:30 pm
Hudson High School
69 Brigham St, Hudson, MA
November 10, 2024
3:00 pm
Mill Pond School
6 Olde Hickory Path, Westborough, MA 01581
About the concert
There will be a preconcert talk 45 minutes before the start of the performance
Fresh from her solo appearance with the Boston Symphony at its opening night concert for the season, the 18-year-old Keila Wakao will both move and dazzle listeners with her unique virtuosity and deeply felt playing. First-prize winner of both the Menuhin Junior Division and Stulberg International competitions, Keila has received numerous other awards and will again appear as soloist with the Boston Symphony in the coming Tanglewood season. She will perform the most popular American violin concerto written by “hyper-romantic” composer Samuel Barber. Dvorak’s cheerful and lyrical Symphony No. 8 and a Dvorak-inspired work by the African-English Coleridge-Taylor will round out the program.
Program
Program
Keila Wakao
Eighteen-year-old violinist Keila Wakao makes her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut for the BSO’s Opening Night Gala concert in September 2024 under Andris Nelsons, on a concert also featuring world-renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and pianists Lang Lang and Gina Alice Redlinger. The BSO’s invitation follows her Grand Prize in the 2023 Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. She performed a movement from Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the BSO and Thomas Wilkins in the BSO Family Concert in October 2023.
Keila Wakao won First Prize in the 2021 Menuhin International Violin Competition Junior Division and the composer award, and was also awarded the Gold Medal and Bach Prize at the 2021 Stulberg International String Competition. In 2023, she was awarded the Aoyama Music Foundation Award in Japan for upcoming artists, and is a recipient of Charlotte White's Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant in New York. In 2024, she was given the Next Generation Distinguished Cultural Achievement Award from the Japan Society of Boston. Most recently, Keila was featured on CBS Boston’s television news.
Born in 2006, Keila Wakao is from Chestnut Hill, MA, and began playing the violin at age 3. Former BSO concertmaster Joseph Silverstein accepted her as a student when she was 6 years old. From age 9, she has been a student of Donald Weilerstein. She worked with Itzhak Perlman and participated in the Perlman Music Program in summers 2018-2022. In fall 2024, she will be attending the New England Conservatory as a Starling Foundation Scholarship recipient and a student of Miriam Fried. She was also accepted to Harvard College, and has deferred her first year of enrollment.
Named a “VC Artist” by Violin Channel, Keila Wakao has performed as soloist and in recital throughout the United States, Japan, Germany, Singapore, and the United Kingdom in venues such as Cadogan Hall (London), Victoria Concert Hall (Singapore), Jordan Hall (Boston), and Carnegie Weill Recital Hall (New York City). She made her solo debut with an orchestra at age 9 and has since performed with ensembles including the Richmond, Reading, Eugene, Chattanooga, Adelphi, Kalamazoo, New Phil, Resound Collective, Baden-Baden, Boston Civic, Lexington and Boston symphony orchestras and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.
In 2017, Keila was invited to speak and perform at TEDxBoston.
Keila plays on the Cremona 1690 “Theodor” Stradivarius violin on loan from the Ryuji Ueno Foundation and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.
