Recently winning Third Prize and Best Performance of Mozarts Kegelstatt Trio in the Fourteenth Primrose International Viola Competition, violist Cong Wu has collaborated with world-renowned musicians such as Shmuel Ashkenasi, Christoph Eschenbach, Paul Katz, Itzhak Perlman, and the American String Quartet, giving concerts through North America and Europe. He has played as Principal Violist of the Juilliard Orchestra and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra in Germany, under the batons of Christoph von Dohnnyi, Christoph Eschenbach, and James Levine. Born in Jinan, China, in 1987, Wu had his first violin lesson at the age of four and began viola in 2004. After graduating from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Wing Ho, he moved to New York in 2010. He won the Juilliard Alumni Scholarship and received his masters degree with Heidi Castleman and Hsin-Yun Huang at the Juilliard School. Cong Wu is currently pursuing his doctoral degree at Manhattan School of Music with a full scholarship, studying with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec.