Biography

Design thinking creating fresh connections to music of the past and future

Noted for the “lightness, grace, and purity” of her playing (New York Times), as well as her expressive style and sensitivity, Szuhwa Wu creates a “stimulating tension” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) in her performances that captivates her audience.

Always seeking artistic renewal, she embraces both historically informed performance and contemporary repertoire. Szuhwa Wu has performed at venues such as Lincoln Center and Miller Theater in New York, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Elbphilharmonie, and the National Theater in Taipei.

Szuhwa has also created performances for the Centre Pompidou, the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris, and Crac Montbéliard (Centre régional d’art contemporain). Throughout her work, she challenges the audience’s imagination, immersing them in unique artistic environments that invite them to explore new musical horizons.

She has shared the stage with musicians such as Mischa Maisky, Isabelle Druet, Guillom Bellom, John Stulz, and Arthur Schoonderwoerd, as well as conductors including Matthias Pintscher, Riccardo Chailly, and Pierre Boulez. Szuhwa has collaborated with ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Les Siècles, the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, Orchestre Victor Hugo Franche-Comté, and Ensemble Cristofori, premiering works by Tristan Murail, Karl Aage Rasmussen, Giacomo Platini, Dai Fujikura, and Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch. A dynamic and unifying leader, she is currently a soloist with chamber ensembles such as Chaarts, Ensemble XXI.n, and the Lucerne Festival Alumni Orchestra.

Passionate about contemporary creation and driven by a desire to craft new settings for participatory music, she founded the POTE (Playing On The Edge) Festival in 2020. This three-day festival brings together artists from various disciplines—musicians, dancers, poets—and takes over the entire city, including its most unexpected spaces, making contemporary music both accessible and vibrant. In the same transdisciplinary spirit, she also leads a solo project under the same name, combining historical works on period instruments with contemporary compositions incorporating electronic elements.

Deeply committed to pedagogy, Szuhwa Wu also pioneers innovative approaches to contemporary music education. She launched the “Digital Creation with Sound and Music” module and the New Music Workshop at the Conservatories of Montbéliard and Besançon, and frequently leads creative workshops and performances. She currently serves as a professor of violin and chamber music at the Conservatory of Besançon.

After earning degrees in Comparative Literature from Columbia University and Violin from The Juilliard School, Szuhwa Wu continued her studies at Juilliard to obtain her Master’s in Violin, followed by an additional Master’s in Ethnomusicology at Harvard University. She also pursued advanced violin training in Switzerland at the Zurich University of the Arts (Hochschule für Musik), studying with Zakhar Bron and Nora Chastain.