Westminster Conservatory of Music presents a benefit concert entitled “Celebrating the Holidays with Musical Gems,” on Sunday, December 20, at 6 p.m. in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College in Princeton. A reception and a silent auction of hand-crafted jewelry will be held after the concert. Proceeds from the auction benefit the Dr. H. Korkina Scholarship Fund, which provides financial aid to students at Westminster Conservatory. Admission to the concert is free but donations are invited.
The program includes solo and chamber works by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Weber, Rachmaninoff, and Gottchalk. Performers include Westminster Conservatory piano faculty member Larissa Korkina and her students Julian Edgren, Alex Ge, Rodger Liu, Farshad Tahvildar Zadeh, and Molly Zhu, all of whom have won major competitions and have performed in such important venues as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. They will be joined by guest artist violinist Ruotao Mao, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, and concertmaster of the Delaware Valley Philharmonic Orchestra, Riverside Symphonia, the Bay-Atlantic Symphony, and Edison Symphony Orchestra.
Molly Zhu, a Plainsboro resident since 2002, was four years old when she was first introduced to a piano. “However, even when I was very young, I remember pretending to play on tables and chairs,” she says. “Eventually, my parents sent me to Kindermusic, a musical group for toddlers, for about a year when I was two or three.”
She studied at Westminster Conservatory in the Suzuki piano program with Emi Tokunaga until 2004. In 2002, 2003, and 2004, she was a winner in the Young People’s Piano Competition sponsored by International Concert Alliance. In 2003 she was awarded second place in the Young Artists’ Competition for piano sponsored by the New Jersey Music Teachers Association (NJMTA).
In the summer of 2004, Zhu began her piano study with Larissa Korkina. Zhu has been a finalist in the piano competition sponsored by the Piano Teacher’s Society of America and winner of the Westminster Conservatory Concerto Competition, the American Fine Arts Festival Piano Competition, the Cecilian Music Club Competition, and the Golden Key Music Festival
Zhu, a freshman at High School North, participated in the fall field hockey season. In 2007, she contributed many hours of community service performing and preparing for the concert, Music in March: Mozart and More, for Camp Quality and the Discovery Orchestra. She also performed at Hurricane Katrina relief concerts at Drew University.
Her father, John Zhu, is a research scientist working for Merck on cures for Alzheimer’s disease. Her mother, Lin, works for Johnson & Johnson. Her siblings are Adam, 10; and Rachel, 8.
“This year is my 10th year so I’ve been playing piano for a decade now,” says Molly Zhu. According to Korkina, “Molly is still playing and she’s still in love with the piano.”
— Lynn Miller
Benefit Concert, Westminster Conservatory, Bristol Chapel, Princeton. Sunday, December 20, 6 p.m. “Celebrating the Holidays with Musical Gems.” 609-921-2663. www.rider.edu.
