Sam Wu’s music deals with the beauty in blurred boundaries. Many of his works center around extra-musical themes: architecture and urban planning, climate science, and the search for exoplanets that harbor life.
Selected for the American Composers Orchestra’s EarShot readings and the Tasmanian Symphony’s Australian Composers’ School, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and First Prize at the Harbin Competition, Sam Wu also received Harvard’s Robert Levin Prize and Juilliard’s Palmer Dixon Prize.
Sam’s collaborations span five continents, most notably with the Melbourne, Tasmanian, China National, Shenzhen, Suzhou Symphonies, Sarasota Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Shanghai International Arts Festival, Asia Society, Chorus Austin, the Parker, Argus, and ETHEL quartets, violinist Miranda Cuckson, shēng virtuoso Wu Wei, and pipa master Wu Man.
Sam has been featured on the National Geographic Channel, Business Insider, Harvard Crimson, Sydney Morning Herald, Asahi Shimbun, People’s Daily, CCTV, among others.
From Melbourne, Australia, Sam (b. 1995) holds degrees from Harvard University and The Juilliard School, and attends Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music for his DMA in composition. His teachers include Tan Dun, Robert Beaser, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Chaya Czernowin, and Richard Beaudoin.