ARIEL WANG
ARIEL Z. WANG - PIANIST & FLUTIST
21-year-old Canadian pianist, flutist, and chamber musician based in Vancouver, Greater Boston, and NYC.
A senior at Harvard University
Top 5% of Harvard Class of 2025 honored as John Harvard Scholar in 2022 and in 2024
Young Steinway Artist
National prizewinner both on piano and flute in 2015 and 2017 in Canada
On CBC's "30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30, 2019" list
Featured on NPR's radio program From the Top in the USA
Gold Medal winner as the pianist of Phillips Trio in the 47th Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in the USA
PIANO BIO
Ariel is a senior at Harvard University studying Neuroscience and Economics. She discovered her love for music and began playing piano when she was under three. She greatly credits her musical development to teachers including Sangyoung Kim, William Wolfram, Amy Yang, Haesun Paik, Wha Kyung Byun, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Kenneth Broadway, Ralph Markham, Ian Parker, Victor Shevtsov, and Tanya Shevtsova. She was appointed as Young Steinway Artist in 2020 and was named in the Canadian Broadcasting Cooperation (CBC)’s 2019 “Canada's 30 Hot Classical Musicians under 30” list as the third youngest musician.
When she was 10, Ariel gave her first solo piano recital in Vancouver. Since then, she has performed as a soloist with the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, Richmond Delta Youth Symphony Orchestra, Eastern Music Festival Young Artists Orchestra, and the New England Conservatory Youth Orchestras. She has frequently appeared at prestigious venues such as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Field Concert Hall at the Curtis Institute of Music, Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory, Tsuen Wan Town Hall in Hong Kong, and Vancouver's Chan Centre for the Performing Arts of UBC.
Ariel has distinguished herself in regional, national, and international competitions since the age of seven. Her notable recognitions include winning Gold and Judges’ Distinction as the youngest on stage in the American Protégé International Competition in 2014, winning the Canadian Music Competition in 2015, winning the 16+ category in the 2nd Hong Kong International Music Festival at 12 in 2015, winning the Shanghai International Piano Festival at 13 in the 16 & under category in 2016, winning first prize in the American Fine Arts Festival 2019, and winning first prize in the North International Music Competition 2019 in Stockholm.
Having won the EMF Young Artist Merit Award, EMF Apprentice Work-Study Award, and the Eastern Music Festival Concerto Competition 2019, Ariel performed with the EMF Young Artists Orchestra in Dana Auditorium in North Carolina. At 16 years old, she won the 17-18-year-old Category D division of the New England Conservatory Preparatory School Concerto Competition 2019, and performed with the NEC Youth Philharmonic Orchestra at Jordan Hall, Boston. Also, the winner of the Harvard MSO's Concerto Competition 2021-2022, she performed as a soloist in Beethoven Concerto No. 3 with the Harvard Mozart Society Orchestra in Fall 2022 at Paine Hall at Harvard University.
Ariel enjoys making music with her friends and engaging in the community around her. As co-founder and the pianist of the Phillips Trio, Ariel won the gold medal of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition 2020 in Notre Dame, Indiana, winning scholarships and was featured on NPR's radio program From the Top.
FLUTE BIO
Ariel started her flute lessons at the age of nine with Natasha Foresi and Brenda Fedoruk in Vancouver, British Columbia. She then studied with Meghan Jacoby at Phillips Academy Andover. Over her summers, she has attended the prestigious Boston University Tanglewood Institute, studying with Linda Toote, and the Summer Winds Program at the Juilliard School, studying with Carol Wincenc. As a solo flutist and chamber player, Ariel frequently holds public performances across North America.
Ariel has won numerous regional, national, and international competitions, including the Canadian Music Competition 2017 with the highest mark in all winds and brass. She was named on CBC’s 2019 “Canada's 30 hot classical musicians under 30” list as the third youngest musician.
Starting a year after she picked up the flute, Ariel has won multiple first prizes in regional competitions in Vancouver, Canada, such as the Richmond Music Festivals and the Vancouver Kiwanis Festivals. She was nominated three times to represent Vancouver in the provincial competition Performing Arts BC and was awarded the provincial First Prize in 2017.
Before moving to Boston, Ariel was the principal flutist in the Richmond Delta Youth Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and Jazz Ensemble for two consecutive years. Winning the Richmond Delta Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition 2016, she performed as the soloist with the Richmond Delta Youth Orchestra in 2017.
Ariel was selected to play the first flute in the Massachusetts Northeastern Senior District Festival in two consecutive school years, receiving recommendations to the All-State festival. In 2018, she performed as a soloist with the Waltham Philharmonic Orchestra as a result of her first prize in the Waltham Philharmonic Concerto Competition 2017 in Massachusetts.
The principal flutist of the New England Conservatory of Music’s Youth Repertory Orchestra, the Phillips Academy Concert Band, Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, Ariel played on tour in Portugal as principal of the Phillips Academy Chamber Orchestra in 2019 and on the 2022 tour in Mexico with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. She was invited to perform as a soloist with the Sharon Community Chamber Orchestra in June 2022.
BEYOND THE MUSIC
Ariel is deeply influenced by and connected with her communities and their cultures. Music is not only meant to shine on stage, it heals, inspires, and changes lives. She continues to explore the wonders of sound, performing music that allows her to express herself across the musical spectrum and across communities; she understands that music is a journey to learn about life.
Growing up, Ariel believed the power of music is in communicating and sharing it with people in need. Musical social engagements have always been a major pastime of hers.
She has appeared in regular seasonal orchestra performances for local communities in various social events and senior homes throughout the Greater Vancouver and the Boston area: for two consecutive years, she participated in the "Parade of Music,” a fundraising concert "for a better tomorrow" as a pianist with the Rotary Club of Vancouver Centennial to raise money to support building water filtering systems and school reconstructions for the International Paraguay Water Project and International Nepal Education Centre Project.
Since her freshman year of high school, she has been serving as a community engagement program coordinator for the Youth Development Organization to lead the tutoring of students from under-resourced communities around the Andover-Lawrence area.
During her quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ariel responded to cellist Yo-Yo Ma's SongsOfComfort campaign, continuously creating uplifting music on her own Facebook page "SongsofComfort" to provide hope, comfort, and a sense of community while so many people are in isolation and apart from social connections: together we move forward. The page has fundraised thousands of dollars for charities like Feeding America since its launch in April 2020.