Josh Liu
Instrument: Violin
Studies:
Fine Arts Center, Greenville, SC
Biography:
Josh Liu is a senior attending Fine Arts Center located in Greenville, South Carolina, where he takes chamber music with John Ravnan and music theory/history classes Dr. Jon Grier, and Wade Hampton High School. Born in Shanghai, China, Josh started the violin at the age of 5 and moved to the United States when he was 8. He currently studies with Joanne Cohen.
He first appeared as a soloist on stage with the Greenville County Youth Orchestra when he was 13, playing Schubert's Konzertstück for violin and orchestra. He was a member of the member of the orchestra for 7 years, under the baton of Dr. Gary Robinson. Last spring, he performed his rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner at a FRC robotics competition in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In the past summers, Josh attended National Symphony Orchestra's summer music institute on scholarship in Washington, D.C. There he performed at the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center and on Capitol Hill for the Congressmen with his quartet, playing the "American" Quartet in F. This past Christmas, he was one of the players to attend the New York String Orchestra Seminar on scholarship, where he performed in 2 sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall with Jaime Laredo, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Pamela Frank, Bella Hristova, Kyoko Takezawa, and Jinjoo Cho. Other summer festivals includes Bob Jones University's summer music camp and the Brevard Music Festival.
Josh and his quartet participated in the Parker String Quartet's Chamber day festival at University of South Carolina: where he was privileged to have coaching and Masterclasses with the Parker String Quartet, Kristopher Tong of New England Conservatory, and the faculties of USC; they placed first in their competition playing Mendelssohn's 4th string quartet in E minor. He attended Robert McDuffie Center for String's Labor day festival on scholarship, where he played in Masterclasses, chamber music, and orchestra. He participated in Masterclasses with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Robert McDuffie, Annie Fullard of Cavani Quartet, Kelly Hall-Tompkins, Lara St. John and Benjamin Beilman. He was the winner of 2 high school festivals in the strings division at Bob Jones University and a finalist for Hilton Head Concerto Competition. This past year, he was a winner of YoungArts, South Carolina’s MTNA senior division string competition, and Carolina Youth Symphony concerto competition. Most recently, he was awarded the grand prize of Kennesaw State University concerto competition.
Outside of music, Josh enjoys being on the robotics team, and his school’s environmental Green Artist club. One of his quirks includes programming on his calculator if he's bored in class. His interests includes juggling, some annoying math problems for fun, playing obnoxious catchy tunes on the piano, an amateur photographer, uprooting kudzoos (it’s an invasive plant) and catching bees with his chopsticks (2 successful times!)
