Adé Williams, violin
Chelsea Wang, piano
Union College

Violinist Adé Williams is a two-time Sphinx Competition laureate (1^st place, Junior Division, 2012; 2^nd place, Senior Division, 2019). She has won numerous other competitions in the US and Europe, beginning at age eight, and has placed in several chamber music competitions.

Adé has enjoyed a thrilling solo career, from her debut with the Chicago Sinfonietta at age six to her concerts with over 50 American orchestras including the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, the Detroit, Pittsburgh, New World, Indianapolis, and Nashville Symphonies, and Buffalo and KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonics (South Africa) by age 18. Most recently, she has made her debut with the Chineke! Orchestra at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and with the Lansing Symphony. In 2017, Adé premiered Guardian of the Horizon: Concerto Grosso for Violin, Cello, and Stringsby Jimmy Lopez, a work commissioned by Carnegie Hall and New World Symphony. The NY Concert Review praised her as “an absolute winning champion of the work.” Adé made her White House debut in 2015 and Carnegie Hall debut in 2013 where she has since returned five times. She has attended the Pacific Music Festival (Japan), the Astona International Music Festival (Switzerland), Cambridge International String Academy (England), and the Chautauqua Institution (US).

Sought out as a classical music and humanitarian leader, Adé has participated in the Music by Black Composers project as a recording artist, in the Milken Institute’s “Why Wait? Young People Blazing Trails” program as a panelist, and at University of Michigan as a guest lecturer. In 2012, she produced her first Adé & Friends benefit concert in support of a new school on Chicago’s south side, where she is also a charter member of the Junior Division of the Chicago Music Association. In 2004, Adé founded SugarStrings, a string trio of cousins known for exhilarating performances on 98.7 WFMT, CNN/Essence, NBC Nightly News, ABC7, WTTW’s Chicago Tonight and at numerous civic and charitable events around the US. She continues her work with young musicians by teaching in her joyful, expanding private studio.

Adé has received many honors, awards, and fellowships, including the Linda and Isaac Stern Charitable Foundation Award in memory of Isaac Stern, the first William Warfield Scholarship, and the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation grant and instrument loan programs. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she served as concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in the 2018-2019 season and studied with Ida Kavafian. Prior to Curtis, Adé studied with Almita and Roland Vamos, Marko Dreher, and Rachel Barton Pine.

Praised by the New York Times as an “excellent young pianist”, Chelsea Wang has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician throughout North America in venues including Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, New York’s Merkin Hall, Kimmel Center’s Perelman Hall, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Rockefeller University, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, the Orford Music Festival in Orford, Quebec, and more. She has performed extensively in Europe and Asia, appearing in venues including Konzerthaus Berlin, Munich’s Allerheiligen-Hofkirche, Konzertsaal at Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber, Dresden Hochschule fur Musik, Auditori Teulada Moraira in Spain, Chamber Hall of Warsaw Philharmonic, Seoul Arts Center, and Taitung Cultural Performing Arts Center. She is a prizewinner and finalist of many national and international piano competitions including the Seoul International Piano competition,  Washington International Piano Competition, New York International Piano Competition, Schubert Club Scholarship Competition, and many more.

Ms. Wang made her orchestral debut at the age of six and has performed with many orchestras since then including the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New Orleans Civic Symphony, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra and the Fort Dodge Symphony Orchestra, among others. Her festival appearances include the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, Bravo!Vail, Tippet Rise Art Center, Music Academy of the West, PianoTexas, Fontainebleau, Music from Angel Fire, Four Seasons Winter Workshop, Banff, Amalfi Coast, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festivals.

Chelsea has collaborated alongside Ida Kavafian, Ani Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, Peter Wiley, Roberto Diaz, Anne-Marie McDermott, Anton Nel, Hsin-Yun Huang, Yu-Chien Tseng, Arnaud Sussmann, Kristin Lee, Matthew Lipman, Yoojin Jang, Dmitri Murrath, and other inspirational mentors. She has also had the honor of working with many notable musicians and chamber groups including Richard Goode, Gary Graffman, Robert McDonald, Seymour Lipkin, Arie Vardi, Aldo Ciccolini, John Perry, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Andre Watts, Jonathan Biss, Miriam Fried, Leonidas Kavakos, eighth blackbird, Emerson Quartet, and Tokyo String Quartet, among others. Radio appearances include “What Makes It Great” with host Rob Kapilow, NPR’s “From the Top”, along with programs on New York’s WQXR, and Philadelphia’s WHYY Public Radios and other programs in Iowa, Kansas, and Minnesota.

A native of West Des Moines, Iowa, Ms. Wang is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she studied with  Meng-Chieh Liu and Ignat Solzhenitsyn and was awarded the prestigious Sergei Rachmaninoff Award upon graduation. She received her Master of Music degree and Graduate Performance Diploma at the Peabody Conservatory under the tutelage of Leon Fleisher and Yong-Hi Moon, and is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music with James Giles.